Like You

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I very recently read Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, and one of the characters said something that was, to me, very interesting, so I decided to make a post of it (also, I’m very lazy today).

Here’s the quote:

“Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there.

It doesn't matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.”

I talked before about leaving behind a legacy, and this sort of adds to the point.  When you create something, make something that’s like you when you take your hands away, you’re leaving yourself there.

If you’re lucky, that part of you will spread into the world and build and grow until it has become a part of society (e.g. Bram Stoker’s Dracula or Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein).

But even if you’re not lucky and all you made was one shoe, you will still be living in the world for longer than you would have (except if someone burns it to ashes).

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Leaving a Legacy

I think every person wants to know that his or her life has been for a reason – that their life had not been a waste. They hope that they leave some kind of legacy behind.

Lots of people have a child to be a legacy for them. Someone that they leave behind when they leave the world. Others might never have that opportunity. So they may turn to lifeless things to carry their voice forever. Think of people like Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell. Their names are forever etched into the history of mankind.

Nowadays, things change so rapidly, it is difficult to leave a mark. So many new things appear and then get replaced by the next thing within a year. Where are those people’s legacies?

More to the point, as a writer, I have an opportunity to make a mark that can last a long time. There are so many writers that get published these days however – with self-publishing and so on making a big impact – that standing out will be a hard thing to do.

But maybe that is less of the point than one would think. Maybe you don’t have to be the next Hemingway to leave a legacy behind.

If I have one dream that I cling to, it is that someday – possibly after I’m dead – someone will take a book I wrote and pass it to a friend, colleague or child and say, ‘Here is a book that is worth reading’. If I could change one person’s life for the better – even if it’s just giving a moment of pleasure in a world of dreariness – I will know that I’ve been successful at life and would be able to die happily.

This makes me think of that movie (I think it was 2012) where a point of chance put a small-time writer’s book on the list of a small group of books left after the world ends.

Knowing this, I can only go forth to put out my very best (nay, my very soul) into any novel I have any intention of getting published, for it might just be a book that will carry my legacy long after I’m gone.

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