Legacy

Today, I’ve been working primarily on restoring Beast 1 (my old computer), back to windows XP for my parents. This will be overkill for what they need (Terabyte in Raid 1, 2 Gb of Ram, you get the idea). It’s taken me back to some older windows days… Heck, I’ve even had to use a floppy disk :-).

It got me thinking about the legacy we all leave. I was thinking about how in 100 years, assuming my 5 backups of everything still exist, people will be able to not only see photos of what their “great great grandpa” was like, but see video, and hear my voice. In fact, they could read this very blog post… Again, assuming it surrives.

But what really does this mean? Think about it: how often do you watch your own family home videos? Do you ever go looking for your great great great grandpa’s diary’s? Sure, we all like to know where we came from, but for how long?

So I’m trying to figure out what that legacy should look like… Like maybe do a book report on myself and package it… Like what would I WANT them to know 100 years from now? I wouldn’t WANT them to be overwhelmed with photos, or videos of me. I mean really… who wants to sit back and watch 24 hours of christmas over the 24 years? I’m sure they want just the highlights. The moments that show who people are.

Even this blog… Probably contains way more than any one person would ever care to know about how I see the world. Sure, it’s 6+ years of data expounded by me. It shows the change in computers over that time. It shows me going from Highschool to College, and then on to my own company. But it doesn’t do a very good job at all of summarizing who I am, which is all the future is really going to want.

Perhaps it’s time to put together a “life summary”. Something that archive the important things. The things that matter. The things that you want to be remembered for.

Maybe I’m sounding to grim.

Oh, and hey, one last note: Congrats to Richard and Elizabeth on buying their first house! Can’t wait to see it!