It’s curious that the theme of this month’s Indieweb Carnival , hosted by Xandra , is the idea of ‘impact’: I have been wondering a lot, lately, about the effect of me existing today, and what legacy I will leave when I’m gone.
I assume (I may be wrong) that people with children, even if they ‘just’ lived an average, honest, ordinary, life, can be content about the fact that they perpetuated life on Earth. Impact accomplished.
As a childless guy, I won’t have that ‘consolation’ prize. My name won’t come up in any great-grand-child family tree: ‘Grandpa Paolo, he’s the one who made me watch The Omen when I was seven years old. To this day, I’m still afraid of churches’. Nope. No snapshot in the family album.
And in my line of work there’s no credit roll, so nobody will tap the virtual pause button after watching a film on their Vision Pro 32, look at a bunch of names and wonder who this guy in charge of ‘Animal Colouring’ was.
So, will I leave a trace at all?
Some time ago, a dear friend sent me a picture: she’s a primary school teacher, and the subject of the photo was a collective work she prepared with her pupils, inspired by René Magritte’s painting La corde sensible
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She knew that would make my day: I’m the person who introduced her to Magritte’s works; now she had done the same with these kids. I felt like my purpose had been fulfilled. I will never know if any of those kids, growing up, will remember this little thing and become curious about surrealism.
But if they do, even though they will never know about me, or the chain of human relationships that brought Magritte to them, it would be because of me.
I have done nothing, but still, it felt (it feels) like I’ve made an impact.
That’s the thing: with every personal interaction, we have the potential to set in motion a sequence of events with an unpredictable effect. Which we may never know we caused.
If I think about the people in my life who have influenced my path, excluding my family maybe three people immediately come to mind: I am where I am because somebody inspired me to go live abroad; because somebody pointed out a possible career path on a newspaper; because someone broke up with me and left me free to make a choice without looking back.
But then, would I be here if someone hadn’t hired me? Would I be here if someone had hired me? What about the people who believed in me and gave me a chance? Would I have the same taste in music if I had had a different set of friends in high school?
If I think about it, if I consider all the threads of life, even limiting the scope to people I met in person, I’ll be able to list many more.
At least part of it, I’m sure, worked in both directions. It may be a romantic illusion, but I want to believe that we exchange a microscopic tile with every person with whom we have spent some time - be it a partner, a friend, a colleague, a pen pal, or even an acquaintance - and that those tiles become a part of the mosaic of each other’s lives.
So, I am less worried about not being able to contribute to any gene pool.
What I can do is (continue to) leave a trace in the meme pool. Explain what I know, mentor younger colleagues, talk about my interests, cook family recipes for friends, and even blog about the films I’ve watched.
I won’t change anybody’s life, but some of it might have a (no matter how superficial) impact on someone, or it might not. It’s worth giving it a try.