Continuing from that previous train of thought on our identity and who "we" are I am struck by an absence of fear. The consciousness that is writing this, part of the gradient that is Stephen James, that being me in this moment, is aware of a slow and inevitable erosion from existence into non existence, effectively death. But it... or I... will simply transform, no, will be succeeded by a new identity a new consciousness.
Furthermore the inevitable is to be accepted, not feared.
In the same way the gradient that is Stephen James, in its entirety, will inevitably pass into non-existence (what conventional wisdom calls death) but this gradnet of identities, that is itself: a person; a story; an identit. It to will be succeeded by a new consciousness, one or two or a hundred, children, grandchildren, friends, a stranger's life that was unwittingly impacted. This is the larger gradient the great consciousness and identity that is Humanity. And so in the same way that we accept our short term deaths, the deaths we live each day or year or decade, we should not fear the passing of the greater gradient that is "us", our greater death, because we are succeeded, we are a part of a greater gradient of which we are all a part, from Abraham Lincoln and Galileo Galilei right down to the lowliest street sweeper or starbucks "barista". We are ALL a part of this gradient, some of us play larger roles, some set great presidents for human morality or push the boundaries of human understanding, others simply live out their lives, impacting those around them simply through their own existence.
As the story of human history grows longer and longer we are all lost to the ages but we are still a part of the whole. And our own value should not be measured solely by our contribution to it, but rather to the standards we held in our lives, and our pride in the machine we were a part of.
We will all be forgotten eventually. And all but a few of us will be lost sooner than we like, how many of us can name out great grandparents? Or our great great grand parents? or so on, even the best of us could only manage perhaps a handful of our recent ancestors, and even if we did recall their names, what would we know of them? Who they were how they lived their lives. But the absence of our knowledge does not diminish the value of their lives, they lived, well or badly, and that is a part of time. Even the greatest of us, Plato, Aristotle, Newton, Einstein, Hawking, their names may live for thousands of years, but time will wear away at even there great identities, and even of them, we may have some ideas, but none of us truly know them, how could we? But again that does not diminish the value and contribution (good or bad) that they had in existence.
"The value of ones Life should not be measured in the memories of those who do or do not recall their existence, but rather by the standards that they held in life, regardless of whether or not those standards resonated in those around them. "
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