If there is a God, the dead have a lot more going on than worrying about what people here say about them. If there isn’t a God, there isn’t an after death consciousness to worry about anything. There are no other options. So, why do we care about what people say about us during or after our lifetimes? What purpose does legacy serve anyway?
Fame Dies Also.
He wondered if the dead read obituaries.
He thought of them
as he read the newspaper,
and wondered about the recently dead.
Was the owner of a five line obituary
any different than the famous person
who had a full page article,
complete with photographs?
Did a life have meaning
greater or less because of their fame?
He supposed that when the memories faded,
the newspapers were used
to collect debris
from the animals who remained alive.
He moved from the newspaper
to the Internet.
Obituaries live a long time on the Internet.
Some people get many mentions
in news outlets,
which trumpet their accomplishments
while they lived,
and everyone who reads them
is glad that they aren’t reading about themselves.
After a famous person dies,
do we celebrate them,
or ourselves?
While we live,
none of us wants an obituary.
He didn’t care whether it would be short or long.
He just didn’t want it written
while he was alive.
Like Ozymandias,
he wanted his obituary
dug out of desert sand,
after a thousand years.
Even then, he knew
that no one would care,
except for the schoolchildren
required to read about him
in order to graduate.