Great news! We’re Immortal!

If you had won something 500 years ago, unless you have physical possession of the actual award (statue, plaque, medal), there is probably no record of it. Any paper still in existence from 500 years ago is rare.

None of us know if one of our relatives was Merchant of the Year in their town 500 years ago. We have no idea what our ancestors looked like 500 years ago. There was no photography back then. Unless your clan has an exceptional family tree, there’s no way of knowing that ancestor’s name, and forget about learning who they married, which town they were born, in which town they died, or anything of the like.

Our long-past relative was gone and forgotten once the few people they personally knew passed away. Aside from their genes and their choices in general location (Germany or Sweden), they disappeared. You had relatives that lived in the 1300s, the 800s and, also, 10,000 BCE. But those relatives are nameless and faceless. Nothing about their specific life is known or relevant.

I think that knowledge of this (both consciously and subconsciously) affects us. Do we subconsciously think about leaving no trace at all?

Do we consciously think about it? I’m making you think about it now.

I think this might make us feel insignificant. Although we are all an integral part of this amazing universe, the comparatively short period of our living years is insignificant when held up against all of history. It makes our life feel short and fleeting. The universe is many billion years old. We live for about 80 years.

It makes us feel like what we do may not matter. If your past relative’s amazing award has been completely forgotten, then what chance do you have of being relevant after your time?

Your past relative could have saved countless lives from a flood or a fire hundreds of years ago. They could have lived as a hero for the rest of their life. They could have been famous in their town and in the ten closest towns. We have no way of knowing about this amazing accomplishment.

There are a handful (more than that but not that many really) of famous names in ancient history and if your name wasn’t Caesar or Confusious or Abraham, you were gone, in a puff.

But now, thanks to digital life, things will be different, forever. All of our online personas are time capsules for people of the future. They will remember you. You will not know them, but they will know you.

Far, past generations will no longer be forgotten because of the digital age. You can live your life knowing that people will be able to access your words and adventures 1,000 years from now. Both our successes and our failures will be forever.

Of course, there are no guarantees. We cannot know what will come of the companies and websites that now house our photos and messages. It’s possible that those websites or, even, social media itself could no longer exist in the future. All of our digital contributions could be deleted for the sake of storage space. We cannot know for sure, but I believe that it’s unlikely that our digital presence will be removed entirely.

If we can keep the original U.S. Constitution safe under glass for over 200 years, the people of the year 3000 will certainly be able to keep digital records for eternity. Even today, my storage plan with Google costs about two bucks a month and I can store Moby Dick many, many times over. Record-keeping and data storage technology will only get better and better.

This idea offers us ways to take advantage of this new way of the world.

You can be an example.

Since much of your life will be documented for study, everything you do could, potentially, be examined by your ancestors. The sequence of your life, detailed through photos and online writing, could be seen as the ideal path. Or, your whole life and philosophy could be seen as boring or, worse, offensive.

You can pass along knowledge.

Gone with the manuscript is the idea of losing information. It is and will be much easier to preserve almost anything. There will be no ancient document to lose or accidentally burn. With that, we will have the opportunity to pass lessons to future generations. In 100 years, your YouTube video about knitting could be the gold standard for knitting lessons. A statement you made online about a social issue could end up being a battle cry for a future movement or, even, the slogan of a whole political party.

You can share your personal style and appearance.

Do you want future humans to wear yellow shirts with purple hats? Well, the photos of you wearing that outfit will be accessible forever, inspiring not-yet-born fashionistas to potentially change world fashion based on your taste. It’s a long shot, especially for me, but it is still possible. And we will never know if it will happen or not.

You can critique future generations.

Your posts about life could be used as a measuring stick in the future. An innocent statement about how much you enjoy a family barbecue could potentially cause future generations to examine how they spend their free time and how they connect with their loved ones.

You can make future generations laugh.

Not all jokes stand the test of time but yours might! Just as the jokes of Lenny Bruce and Johnny Carson are forever, thanks to the digital age, all of our jokes can be immortal. Who knows? A joke you made online today could generate a new comedic style in 2360.

Having a long chronological reach can help you try to communicate with the future. It will also create a dynamic around future humans’ opinions of us.

How will people of the future judge us?

Will future generations look at my sketchers sneakers the same way we looked at the powdered wigs of the revolutionary era?

Will genetic treatments for things like male-pattern baldness make anything but perfect hair antiquated?

Will they be surprised about how we treat gender?

Will our physical features change enough that we appear to look odd? Eventually, they will.

There are countless other questions that can be explored.

Of all of the fun aspects of eternal record-keeping, the most powerful may be the simplest: Your Smile.

That’s right. If any of your photos make it through the next thousand years, the future viewer of those photos will notice your smile. A photo of a smiling person implies that the subject of the photo is happy, that they are living a good life, even if only in that moment. Photos of us smiling will tell humans of the future that, even though we don’t have all of the technology and advancements enjoyed by the future audience, we still knew how to live. It will tell those yet to be born that we were successful and happy. And, regardless of your time in history, that is all you can aim to accomplish.

Burak Uzun is an award-winning writer and a Certified Meditation Teacher.

Burak Uzun also co-wrote a feature film called Team Marco, which was featured in over fifty film festivals around the globe and was distributed by Samuel Goldwyn Films.

Please feel free to reach out to Burak here.

Learn more about SOCA LLC and Burak’s classes here.