Did They Know?

Benjamin Franklin: "Don't worry, the history books will clean it up."
John Adams: "I won't be remembered by the history books. It will all be 'Franklin did this, and Franklin did that, and Franklin did some other damn thing. Franklin smote the ground and out popped George Washington, fully grown and on his horse. He then electrified him with his amazing lightning rod and the three of them, Franklin, Washington, and the horse, conducted the entire revolution by themselves."

I watched the movie 1776 today, as is becoming my habit on Independence Day. As I watched it, I began to wonder: did our forebears realize what kind of legacy they would have? Did John Adams know, when he pushed and pushed for independence, that over two hundred years later people would still be talking about and celebrating what he did? Did Benjamin Franklin realize when he had his portrait painted that hundreds of years later people would walk around with his picture on their money? Moreover, did he have any idea what that the electricity that he began playing with then would be absolutely essential to the way many people live their lives now, so many years later? Did Thomas Jefferson know that his words would be quoted for centuries to come? I doubt it. I think they probably knew what they were doing was important, probably realized that it would have long-term consequences, but did they realize they were creating a new nation that would thrive and become a world power?

It got me thinking about the consequences of our actions, and about what people will think about our generation two hundred years in the future. Is it possible that, centuries from now, people will be quoting things my friends and colleagues have written? Could it be that our inventions, our ideas, our creations will endure?

I remember the giant stone ruins I saw in the Middle East, the enormous pillars that have remained standing for thousands of years. I wonder if the lowly stone cutter and the engineers and well-muscled workers who put up those pillars knew that thousands of years later people would travel from around the globe (another concept they could not have grasped) to see their work. Will our buildings last that long? Will they endure the weathering and time to stand as a testament to our existence thousands of years in the future?

I've been contemplating time a lot lately. I've been thinking about the four thousands years of worship that have taken place at Palmyra in Syria, and about the period of time that people have been continuously dwelling in the city of Damascus. I thought about how, despite the fact that they're practically newborns in the grand scheme of history, how much impact the founders of the U.S. have had on the world. Understood philosophically, time is both a force and a social construction. Time is a force in that it is something that exists in the realm of nature, and which is beyond our control. Time passes, the sun rises and sets, the seasons change, organisms grow, die, and decompose, ad nauseum et infinitum. But time is also a social construction. Humans created calendars and clocks, defined years, months, hours, minutes, and seconds. We are the only creations, so far as I can tell, that actually keep track of time. Animals perhaps keep track of seasons for hibernation and food storage. Plants grow as the seasons set forth, but they do not count the hours and minutes, they don't set deadlines, and they certainly don't keep concrete schedules.

So, what is it about our humanity that makes us want to keep track of time? Why do we count the days of our lives, numbering the days and the years, ticking off hours and minutes? Is it our sense of looming mortality? Are we trying to keep track of our time so that we can make the most of it? Or is have we created calendars and timepieces so that we can live better together? Our time-tracking certainly makes it more possible for us to arrange to meet one another, to make working and traveling together a possibility. Keeping track of time allows us to have commerce and communication, to organize our interaction. Yet, does it really serve us? When we worry about wasting time or losing time, when we allow our calendars and clocks to limit us or dictate how we live, is that healthy? When we forget that we have created time and instead allow it to rule us, what does that do to our freedom? Do we realize how small we are in the grand scheme of things? Do we recognize the possible consequences of our actions in the long run? Or are we so trapped in our keeping track of seconds that we forget to think in terms of centuries? And how would we act or live differently if we thought with a longer frame of reference?

As I write this, I doubt that anyone will read this a month from now, much less in two hundred years. I know that I've spent minutes typing this that I will never get back. But I care a lot less about the minutes I've lost and a lot more about the possibility of making a positive change for the people two hundred years from now. So I guess I'll keep writing.