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Zarna Shah (she, her, hers), Low Entropy Volunteer Writer

Another day of scrolling through an endless barrage of engagements, million-dollar deals, and six packs; lives perfectly curated to fit on my screen and tease me with all that I could have but don’t. If only I just worked smarter, harder, longer. Hustle culture screams at me to be busier, to do more, to be better, to squeeze every ounce of productivity out of myself, so that maybe, just maybe, I can do something worthwhile, and be someone worth remembering. That’s the end goal, isn’t it? The mad dash toward excellence, just to feel like we mattered, and believe that our lives will be celebrated long after we are gone. 

Nowadays, it is easy to trick ourselves into a false sense of self-importance with all the privileges that social media has afforded us. What would have once been forgettable days, uncelebrated achievements of anonymous names and faces, are now stamped in a few lines of code to be remembered indefinitely. From markings in caves to cameras in our pockets, we have come a long way to make sure our existence is known. 

As my eyes glaze over the relentless stream of promotions, graduations, and pregnancies, my mind wanders to all those nameless and faceless that lived before me. My ancestors whose names are not in history books, whose faces are not in royal portraits, and whose achievements are unmarked. Did they not have lives worth remembering? And all the other people lost, stolen, forgotten from wiped out cultures and civilizations. They spoke in languages no longer spoken, sang songs that are no longer sung, and their stories are no longer told. No record of the lives they lived, only scarce accounts of what was lost. 

I almost pity them, but I know our fate is the same, only mine may be a little delayed. The dead only live through the memories and stories of the living, and in due course, the last brain holding the memory of me will be a decomposed pulp — or a pile of ash. The last body retaining the strengths I nurtured, and scars I created, will breathe no more. One day, even today’s most influential person’s page will be clicked on for the last time, and everything will be dust. 

So, is it all futile? Why try so desperately to create the illusion of immortality when we are all destined to be forgotten? 13.8 billion years of my atoms existing, 300,000 years of human life, and an infinite stretch of time ahead, long beyond the survival of humanity, yet we are irrefutably persistent to try and make a mark on Earth. Why make an effort when everything is destined to be nothing again? Well, that’s just what we are wired to do. Despite not knowing what all this life, love and labour is supposed to add up to, we endure on the off chance it might lead to something. 

Dinosaurs make me believe that our chances may be better than we think. 65 million years ago an entire species was eradicated. Now, a new species — supposedly more intelligent — spends years digging up their bones — to fight over them, yes, but also to learn about their ways of life and piece together details of their existence, long after they had any reasonable hope of being remembered. 

It is easy to look at the scope of the Universe and admit defeat because everything means nothing, and nothing means anything. Our existence is arbitrary, our survival is random, and the likelihood of being remembered is infinitely small. However, the chance that our actions could ripple out and matter to some entity, somewhere, someday is enough to carry on. Every human body, name, or face forgotten is not gone. Their legacies live on in us in ways we may not even understand. We carry them through our genes, cultures, beliefs, yes, but also through the butterfly effect of their everyday actions, and decomposition after death. Every creature that lived is remembered by the Earth, and the Universe must know that the Earth exists. So, we keep on keeping on.

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