Legacy: Carving the Stone
Written by Julia B.
In life, a simple fact is that we don’t have much within our control. We are each one person on a planet of nearly eight billion people. Parents have some control over their offspring, or teachers over their students, but at the end of the day, we can really only decide things for ourselves. Every decision we make, and every person we impact, if remembered when we are no longer here, contribute to creating our legacy.
The word legacy is complex on its own. No one questions the surface-level meaning: memory and inheritance. But the role the word plays in our subconscious day-to-day life composes levels of deeper thought and questions the roles that people play in granting one's legacy. The word itself originally meant “body of persons sent on a mission” and something to “appoint by a last will.” The word later developed an association with physical property left behind, however, the initial meaning was based on the embodiment of a spirit. Legacy is meant for a person no longer present to be given a title, or a memory, or something to remember them by. In this act, multiple people play a crucial role. First, the person needs to prove what legacy they deserve, or if they are worthy of one at all. Then, others choose to grant them the legacy. Ultimately, it is up to each one of us to decide if that legacy lives on, set in stone, or if there was a crack in the title causing the legacy to crumble to the ground. The fragility of a legacy means that we not only need to deliberately consider how we want to be remembered but also how we remember others because ultimately a legacy is something earned and rewarded — it is up to us to decide.
Before a legacy can exist, one needs to actually do something that people consider is worth remembering. We as a society are so conscious of the lasting effect our actions have on other people and on the world; permanence is a scary idea, but it is our reality. That is why conversations about our digital and environmental footprint have become frequent and persistent. When we are gone…the impact of our actions stays. Socially, this is a hard task. We have countless daily interactions: conversations, walking by someone in the hallway, or even asking a stranger a question. Each and every one of these moments sway how we are seen and remembered as a person. Our reputations are like a balancing scale…for every bad interaction we have, a stone is placed on one end, and for every good interaction a stone is placed on the other end. However, the bad stones are the size of rocks compared to the good stones, pebbles. Countless research studies and psychologists have suggested that bad recollections outweigh the good ones in our long-term memory. A psychology professor at Stanford University, Laura Carstensen, explained that the reason for this comes down to our instinctual survival impulses saying “It’s more important…to notice the lion in the brush than it is to notice the beautiful flower that’s growing on the other side of the way.” Unless you cure cancer, solve world peace, or slay a dragon, your legacy probably won’t come down to any one moment. This means it is important for us to collect as many pebbles and as few rocks as possible.
The distribution of stones is the final deciding factor in what kind of legacy we earn. While we try to forget most people whose actions have been more harmful than good, some people tip the scale to a breaking point, and we are left with no choice but to give them a legacy — whether good or bad. Ted Bundy has 20 rocks for sure — probably closer to 100 — yet his name will go down in history…just like he wanted. Like many serial killers, “Bundy loved the attention his murders garnered him.” A man known for raping and killing countless young women was highly publicized in the media and has been ‘celebrated’ with over 10 movies, documentaries, and television series about him. Despite the stories depicting him as the villain he was, not a hero, or supportable in any way, they are giving him the legacy that he worked his whole life to earn. Does his name deserve to be remembered by the world, while his victims' names are forgotten? I think not. In the United States, we face this problem every day. As of October 6th, the 278th day of 2023, there have been 487 mass shootings in the US. That is an average of 1.75 mass shootings a day. Do any of the shooter's names deserve to be remembered? In 1999 we decided yes. The tragic Columbine shooting occurred leaving 15 people dead, and more injured. The shooters (whom I am choosing not to name) have since had their diaries published into a real book, as if they should be remembered like Anne Frank, and have had their names mentioned countless times over the years in news headlines. While choosing to remember this event, yet again we give the murderers exactly the legacy they wanted. Research has shown that the media “using terms like ‘monster’ is counterproductive” because it is rewarding to the killer and the media attention, positive or negative, inspires others to go and do the same thing. Shootings like the Buffalo shooting (May 14th, 2022) and the Uvalde shooting (May 25th, 2022) are most likely linked to a source of inspiration. Despite no malicious intent, the media is giving mass shooters, and horrific criminals, a reason to be remembered. While most of the world sees them as a cautionary tale, to the criminal it is like a crown, and is inspiring future criminals to do the same. So why do we give them a legacy?
History repeats itself is an idiom that we frequently hear. We learn about terrible things so that they won’t happen again. This is the reason that it makes sense to acknowledge when terrible things happen. We will always remember the Holocaust and September 11th. While we should acknowledge terrible things that have happened, we need to start leaving the shooter, murderer, or perpetrator out of the narrative. Instead, we should be showing remorse for the victims. Because we have the power to decide who gets to be remembered and why, we need to take that control. We also are responsible for deciding to whom in history we give a legacy. Recent controversies have started to arise in the US regarding historical statues. After George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter Movement, confederate statues have been increasingly demolished. As of February 2022, “157 memorials were removed in the US”. Those statues were for people whose legacy was that they fought in a war against racial equality. Using this ideology, one can argue that important people in history shouldn’t receive a positive legacy, or one at all, for owning slaves. But the role of deciding who to remember is complex and difficult; we need to use the balancing scale. For example, George Washington led a war giving the United States their independence, was the first president of the US, and owned over 100 slaves (there is a reason the name Washington is predominantly Black today). However, Americans have decided that he doesn’t deserve to have his legacy tarnished; for many, his pebbles weigh more than his rocks. Unfortunately, the balancing scale isn’t perfect, sometimes it wobbles back and forth, and it is our job to choose where to stop it.
In our day-to-day lives, we don’t have history or the media to help us make decisions about what is worth remembering; instead, that task is up to us. While in history and in the news there are exceptions where it is important to acknowledge someone who has done terrible things, socially we need to have different standards. In life, no one is perfect; therefore, not all mistakes should be detrimental to our legacy. We need to be capable of deciding who is worth living on in our memories, consuming our time and thoughts, and receiving a legacy. I like to live by the idea that the opposite of love isn’t hate, it is indifference. For the most part, it isn't worth remembering people who do bad things–it takes more energy to hate someone than to just not care. Therefore, we should just move on from them. The weight of their rocks shouldn’t be ours to carry. It also means that it is our responsibility to remember people for the good that they do–good people deserve our love and celebration. Ultimately, our own legacies aren’t in our own control. We can only control who we believe deserves and will get to receive a legacy of their own. Making this decision should be no light task and should be one that we carefully consider. At the end of the day, a legacy is a lasting reward, but only if we encourage it to be given to positively influential people, and work to dethrone those who we deem undeserving.
