In the past year a few people have asked me in private conversations and when I am publicly speaking “what legacy would I like to leave”.
Initially I found myself stuttering and struggling to answer. I think this was because:
a) I felt the question deserved a high quality, meaningful answer, but I didn’t have one
b) this felt like a question for an elder at the twilight of their career, and I don’t feel this is where I am in life.
More than this I was taken aback when asked in public, it felt a bit like I was at my own funeral!
The Dangerous Seduction of Legacy
Legacy can be dangerous when it focuses on the individual, rather than the collective. Generations clearly should pass on a legacy that protects the environment for ‘those yet to be born’ as indigenous wisdom teaches us. What indigenous wisdom doesn’t teach us is how our individual egos should become memorialised through legacy.
Individual legacy is future-oriented and inspired by Thanatos. It asks: How do you want to be remembered when you die? This takes us away from the present and does three troubling things:
Seduction: Legacy seduces us and tickles our narcissism, plays with our ego and tempts us with self-importance… even after our death.
It turns us into objects: We begin to think of ourselves through the gaze of others, In Lacanian terms, we desire to be seen by “the Other” seeking recognition even beyond our death. We search for objects to leave - books, businesses, our own little package of fame that objectifies us, packages us. Look at my legacy object!
It denies our mortality: While legacy-talk might seem to confront death, it actually hides from it, suggesting that some part of us will live on untouched by finitude.
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