What you leave behind

I will preface this entry by saying that it deviates a bit from the tone of earlier posts, given that the content of this blog so far has been relatively light: a strange obsession with books, adventures in tranny-land, and kind words about a bunny. However, I figure it's too early to commit myself to a particular type of "content" for this blog, so we'll just see where it takes me (and us)....

Today I have been considering the things we leave behind after we die. Sorry to say it, folks, but we're all gonna die. Take a moment to get over that, and then keep reading. I'll wait...

So, I've been thinking about what will happen to the things we leave behind after we die. No, I'm not completely morbid--I don't sit around and consider the after-effects of death on a regular basis. This line of thinking was prompted by my travels home for the holidays. My grandfather passed away over a year ago, and each time I go home my family continues the long and arduous process of dividing his possessions between his widow, children, and grand-children. The struggle lies in how to best honor his life through the tangible things he has left behind. Some things are thrown away or donated, but what remains are those possessions that the rest of us think are valuable or otherwise important. There are artifacts he collected during his WWII tour of duty and from his days as a semi-pro baseball player. In his later years, my grandfather became an artist, and there are paintings and carvings of his that have been divided among the family. This divvying up of his possessions is an important part of the grieving process. However, I think this process is also ripe for reflection about what we can learn about living in thinking about what we will leave behind in death.

The Tangibles vs. Intangibles

So, when we die, we leave things behind. But what most of us consider when we think about our worldly possessions are the tangibles, the concrete things that will clutter someone else’s home after we die. This might be one’s jewelry or baseball card collection or other things society deems to be “valuables,” primarily based on their monetary value. Sometimes these “valuables” are important to those who care about us not because of their monetary value but because they carry some emotional meaning or memory that those who survive us would like to hold on to. Because I’m relatively young and have not accumulated many of these “valuables” to pass along to my survivors, it can be somewhat unnerving to think about how little stuff I have to leave to others. Maybe someone would want my iPod or laptop, my skis or golf clubs, my books or pictures, my furniture. I certainly don’t have a hefty savings account or real estate to pass along to my successors. So, the family and friends who survive me would get pretty screwed if I die sooner than later because I have less stuff to give them.

But, I feel a bit better if, instead, I think about the intangibles I will leave after I die. By intangibles, I refer to the aspects of myself and my life that people identify as belonging to me. These intangibles might be my beliefs, personality characteristics, actions, ideologies, and ideas that people attribute to me. Generally, it seems that intangibles are not bound by medium; they are usually things that one cannot touch or quantify. Instead, they are things that other people must carry with them as thoughts or action potentials in order for these intangibles to matter. Generally, intangibles’ affect on others is determined by how these people change their lives in some way (no matter how small) because of you. Because these things are often not easily quantifiable or tangible, they may seem fleeting or too abstract to conceptualize. It’s certainly easier to think about how someone might use my iPod after I die than it is for me to consider how people might change their lives based on me being a feminist. But, if we can get over this challenge of defining or conceptualizing what it is that we are (this part certainly isn’t easy) and the aspects of ourselves that might impact others, I think that contemplating how my intangibles will be passed on in death is by far more interesting and rewarding than any crappy CD collection I have to give.

The value of really considering these intangibles, I think, lies in how acknowledging that we each have intangibles to give to others can also cause us to live life differently and perhaps in a more meaningful manner. If I consider the tangible stuff I might leave when I die, maybe I’ll work harder to earn more money to accumulate the stuff I think others might like. Maybe I’ll make wiser investment decisions. Maybe I’ll make sure to buy the really nice stuff rather than the cheap stuff. However, if I consider the intangibles that I will leave when I die, I might be more intentional and thoughtful about what it is that I and my life represent. Instead of worrying about the stuff, I might worry about what people learn from me, how my presence affects people for better or for worse, and what my legacy might be. And if I think more about the effect of my intangibles upon other people, I might also consider how others’ intangibles affect me. Maybe I’ll be a better person, a more appreciative person, a more grounded person. At best, maybe thinking about the intangibles will give me a greater sense of purpose, a greater sense of efficacy in my ability to mean something to others. At worst, maybe thinking about the intangibles will make me realize just how much I need to do make sure I do more good than harm for others, that I have a lot of catching up to do to leave a positive effect.

I certainly didn’t spend a whole lot of time considering how my grandfather’s intangibles affected me while he was alive. But, now it is very clear to me that I learned a lot from him about what it means to be a loving, committed, and compassionate person. He probably didn’t always know that he affected me in these ways while he was alive and that his intangibles affect me more now than any of his tangible stuff. Sure I love looking at the paintings he made and having something tangible to remember him with. But, if I look closely enough, I can see how the intangibles of his life have a much more profound and lasting affect on me than anything I can touch. Of course, for these intangibles to have such an effect, it requires that I have the psychological energy and desire to reflect upon and consider the intangibles of his life—resources that are not always easy to find or utilize. It’s certainly easier to spend inheritance money than it is to contemplate how another’s life has affected one’s own. But perhaps the additional mental work this makes is worthwhile because it provides us with more comfort, more meaning in our own lives. That is, if we truly consider how others’ intangibles affect us, we realize that one’s life does not end at death. Rather, one’s life has an affect on others even in death. The very nature of intangibles means that they are not bound by tangible constraints. Rather, intangibles are bound by the extent to which people allow themselves to be affected by others. After I die, people may forget me and my life. But, the intangibles of my life can continue to affect others throughout their lives and those who succeed them. Just as my ideas, emotional experiences, and actions have been affected by others who have now passed, so, too, can my life’s intangibles continue to affect others after I die. The effect of these intangibles might be best thought of as a wave, then, where the most noticeable effect occurs for those who are closest and most directly affected by one’s life. But, just as a wave changes into only a ripple the further away it travels, so might the intangibles of one’s life continue to affect others well into the future, perhaps even many generations and centuries from now. Money will be spent, real estate may be destroyed, fancy china will be broken. But, one’s ideas, values, and experiences have the potential to affect people in a much stronger way and for a much longer span of time.

If there is one thing that studying social psychology has taught me about human interaction and life, it is that we are often affected by others more than we will ever recognize. We rarely ever know what or how things affect us. Maybe these intangibles are not the wave I think them to be; maybe I overestimate one’s ability to affect others even in death. But, I don’t doubt for a second that the intangibles of one’s life have the ability to make a more profound and lasting effect on others than does the stuff we leave behind. The intangibles don’t have to be divvyed up between your survivors; they can all have them. Everyone can benefit from your intangibles if you let them and if they let themselves.