Friday 22 October 2010

Lost to time

I guess that intimations of mortality strike us all at various points in our lives.

While growing up we see our future as a blank page rife with possibilities. Will we be singers, actors, artists, sportsmen, explorers? Perhaps more simple futures lie ahead of us? Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, candlestick maker?

While at university I suddenly noticed that I was now older than the bright young things achieving fame for their sporting or artistic endeavours. The slamming of doors echoed through my head. Not that I’d had plans in any of those directions, but still it was the moment of recognition that my life would be that of a pond-skater rather than a wave-maker.

Impinging on the public eye is one way to leave a lasting impression, but in our private lives we have a myriad of effects on those around us. My imagination is rife with scenarios of raising my kids, showing them the world, giving them insights into the science and mechanics behind it, teaching them to see the complexities of human behaviour, and watching them blossom into their own independent lives with their own unique perspectives. It’s all a bit rosy tinted in my imagination – my kids are bright, sensible and likeable, and I’m a naturally great parent. Ahem.

The breakdown of my marriage pretty much put paid to these hopes, but in any event family history research has shown me that having children in itself leaves no lasting impression except on the gene pool. Only the barest scraps of knowledge about my ancestors has survived – a couple of certificates recording births and marriages, a few rare photos, and one or two possessions that have been handed down. I now know more about my family from census returns than ever survived as oral history. Where is the meat to go on the bare census bones beyond where they lived and what they did for a living? Who were they? What was their story?

Using birth and marriage records, census returns and parish records I’ve managed to reach back 11 generations, but that is but a blink in time. 100 generations separate us from the time of the Roman empire, 2000 generations ago our ancestors arrived in Europe, and our forebears left the Rift Valley in Africa 3250 generations ago.


How many millions have lived and died leaving nothing of their lives to be found. By pure chance some remains are discovered – a skeleton here, an arrowhead there, some pottery fragments, building foundations. From these we build a picture of our origins.

Daft hubris to expect our legacy will be any greater, especially when one considers the significance of our planet in the grand scheme of things. As the Monty Python team put it:

♪♫♪ "Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at 900 miles an hour.
It's orbiting at 19 miles a second, so it's reckoned,
The sun that is the source of all our power.
Now the sun, and you and me, and all the stars that we can see,
Are moving at a million miles a day,
In the outer spiral arm, at 40,000 miles an hour,
Of a galaxy we call the Milky Way.

Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars;
It's a hundred thousand light-years side to side;
It bulges in the middle sixteen thousand light-years thick,
But out by us it's just three thousand light-years wide.
We're thirty thousand light-years from Galactic Central Point,
We go 'round every two hundred million years;
And our galaxy itself is one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.

Our universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding,
In all of the directions it can whiz;
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth;
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth!" ♫♪♫

Nevertheless I guess I write this blog as my legacy and testament, to be lost to time when the internet passes.

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