Posterity

Over the last few days, I’ve been focusing on doing.

I’m focusing on doing, because for the last six months (or so) I’ve caught myself in the habit of thinking about thinking.

Now, please don’t misunderstand me.

I enjoy thinking about thinking.

It’s a curious thing to think about.

Where does thinking come from? What constitutes good thinking? Who was the first thinker? Who was the best thinker? There must be answers for these things, I think…

Except upon thinking about them, I realize that there mustn’t be, because most of the questions there are to ask about thinking have subjective answers, or answers which will be better to wait for science to arrive at rather than to speculate on them until we arrive at an uninformed conclusion.

I’ve found that thinking about thinking is not the way to get things done, and I have come to understand that I must do more things.

So, having transitioned from thinking about thinking, to focusing on doing, I’ve been looking for habits keep my thinking centered on doing.

To that end, I’ve always been a fan of word-of-the day mailing lists.

My favorite of these lists by a long shot is WordGenius, which serves up such esoteric syllable jams as Susurrus, Pergola, Epoch, and Quaff.

I dig on those old-time connotative letter ladders, heavy.

But usually I don’t find the words I am delivered by email to be relevant to the goings-on in my own life.

So, for the past few days, I’ve been giving myself a Word-Of-The-Day, instead of being assigned them by the internet.

Today, my word is “Posterity.”

Posterity is a noun which means, “All future generations of people.”

Used in a sentence we could say, “Global warming, systemic injustice, and American fascism will be the crosses on which we hang posterity if we do not take immediate action against them.” Or, more hopefully; “Today we embark on the endeavors by which we mean to unburden posterity, forevermore, of the crosses our forebears deposited on Us.”

I chose “posterity” as my word because posterity is the reason I write.

I want to believe that the practice I put into putting words on paper, is practice which will result in a more peaceful existence for all posterity.

I want to believe that we all have the potential to lighten the load of those who come after us, and that by taking up this mantle of responsibility to the future, we secure the safety of not only our progeny, but of all humankind, and all life; with whom, and with which, we share all things.

I have taken on this will to believe thanks to a common observation of society made by a few of the impressive civic figures of our time. (Martin Luther King Jr., Isaac Asimov, Bob Marley, etc.)

The observation is that humans are quicker to develop intellectual technology than we are to develop spiritual or moral technology.

That is, humans have always been on the verge of something great. Some invention which promises/threatens to change the world as we know it, forever. Things like the internet… or sliced bread… or fire.

But when it comes to spirituality, or the part of us which wishes to be greater than we are, humans get lazy.

We’re so enamored with our Earthly desire for comfort, rest, and respite that we do not acknowledge the debt we owe to posterity, or the possibility to make good on that debt during our time here.

We do not often say, as Socrates did, “Allow me to plant a tree, the shade of which, I shall never rest in.”

Instead, we spend so much time and energy obsessing over our own deaths that we manage to brush over all the lives that will follow it.

This is one of many pains caused by individualism.

We do not invest in each other. Only in ourselves.

These are harsh accusations. Maybe they are misplaced.

But even if they are in some ways wrong, they are not in all ways wrong, and they are accusations which are worth throwing.

Obviously not because they’re good for morale, but because they force us to think about our actions a bit more critically.

Is what we’re doing today the best thing we can do for the future? How can we live to create a more perfect future, even if we won’t be there to enjoy it? What does it mean to live a good life? Can the world be more just if only we attempt to make it that way?

The answers to these questions are not always clear. And they are even less so, concise.

Inquiries into the future often only lead to more questions.

But if there’s one thing humans should know by now, it’s that we do not know nearly as much as we think we do.

And that’s ok!

We just can’t let thinking be the reason we don’t do.

So my word today is “posterity.”

So that I may maintain my focus, and do.

My word tomorrow will be a different one.

Maybe some word, less burdensome than “posterity.”

But for posterity’s sake, I will try to ensure that it isn’t.