The Big Three & Their Legacy

Over the summer my brother, who's a total hipster (but refuses to admit it), gave me a bunch of new music, and I absolutely fell in love with an artist who goes by "The Tallest Man On Earth." Tallest Man's second album is called The Wild Hunt, and the song with the same name is my favorite piece he's released. The line that actually makes me salivate every time I hear it because it is just so good is, "And I plan to be forgotten when I'm gone."

Being the historian I am, that line has planted a little seed inside of my brain. And, I guess in some ways, that seed has grown into this blog post.

A pillar of my personal philosophy is that people from the past affect us every day of our lives. From Ray Kroc's empire on every street corner to the bigger things, like the laws set forth by the founding fathers, to the smaller things, like whoever decided my high schools colors would be green and gold. No matter if we recognize it or not, we see them everywhere we go. They may not be alive, but they're present. We somehow remember them, even if we never knew who they were.

I am now going to make a claim.

There are three people who have had the most monumental impact on the world. They will never be forgotten. They can never be forgotten as long as the human race exists. Period.

Jesus, Confucius, and Muhammad.

But my question is what would they say if they knew? How would they all react to know that they have, pretty much alone, changed the religion, and the art, and the architecture, and the family structures, and the philosophy, and the daily ritual, and the societal norms, and the food — and the everything — of the world forever?

Do people truly ever understand the impact they will have long after they die? How could Jesus have known that people all across the world would someday know the story of his birth? How could Confucius have known that China, Japan, Korea, and the entire east Asian region would, almost 3000 years after his death, still base their lives around his school of thought? How could Muhammad have known that almost 2 million people a year would retrace his steps to Mecca?

The answer is they couldn't have known. Obviously. But did they want to be remembered? Did they actually aim to change the world? Did it matter to them? Should we care that we (probably) will never be remembered in the same way that Jesus, or Confucius, or Muhammad are?

My personal view on creating a legacy for yourself is rather cynical and existential, so I won't bore you with the details. But I will say this: to The Tallest Man On Earth — I really do love that line.

< Histrophile >