I
have only one life to live; one lifetime to spend. I have only one shot at it;
just this one chance to get it right. I won’t be coming back this way again, I
am most certain. Even those who speak of reincarnation have no memories of their
past lives, so I have to find a way to make the memory of this single lifetime
one worth remembering. Those who have gone on before and whose memories still
linger on achieved this feat in one lifetime. But while at it, they didn’t know
Posterity was filling out its pages with the deeds generations coming after
will know them by.
Every
one – past or living – will be known for only one thing. One single deed or one
single speech; one single thought or one single attitude, thus Posterity sums up
our time in this place. It’s only on epitaphs and obituaries that life is
summarized with a dash between two years. But, be it twenty or seventy years,
Posterity summarizes all by just one single thing. These are the thoughts that
quickly flash through our minds when we hear or read people’s names.
When
you hear the name Winston Churchill your mind sums him up as: The guy who stood against the evil of Nazism. When
you read the name Martin Luther King, you remember: The man who emancipated the African-American people. Mother Theresa’s is the kind woman and Mary Slessor’s is the one who abolished infanticide. Even wicked souls
like Hitler and Nero are not left out. They are each summarized by just one
thing. Your mind sees World War Two when
you think the name Hitler and Fiddling
while Rome burned when you hear Nero’s names.
We
will be known by one thing and it will be summed up in one word or a phrase, at
the most. Some will be good and some will be bad, but the worst are those who
will be known by Nothing. Yes, I
meant Nothing. These are people whose
lives are a forgotten memory while they yet lived; each day that live is as
unmemorable as the last blink. But, those to be most pitied are the ones who
are into everything that they are not known for anything. They will be also be summed
up by the word Nothing.
Each
one will pack behind that single thing the essence of his energies and passion.
It will be his sleeping dream and waking thought. And each will do something every
day about the single thing as time awaits Opportunity and Posterity to come by.
The destiny of a life well-spent will be to help another; to offer something it
can that the other needs. The destiny of the life ill-spent will be to harm
another; to take from the other what it needs. The destiny of the life not lived
is to help itself; to take what it wants not caring what the other needs.
In
a few decades from this day, myself and my generation will be gone and those
coming after will remember us in a flash by one word or one phrase. They will
remember Soyinka and think: Nobel
Laureate. They will remember Omojuwa and think: Spoke truth to power. They will remember P-Square and think: Happy, danceable songs. They will
remember Dangote and think: African
industrial revolution. I hope when they remember you and me they won’t
think: Nothing!
