"What will matter"

[HillWhereIWillRest]

I found this poem below in a documentary:


WHAT WILL MATTER by Michael Josephson

Ready or not, some day it will all come to an end.

There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours, or days.

All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten, will pass to someone else.

Your wealth, fame, and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance.

It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed.

Your grudges, resentments, frustrations, and jealousies will finally disappear.

So, too, your hopes, ambitions, plans, and to-do lists will expire.

The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away.

It won't matter where you came from or what side of the tracks you lived on at the end.

It won't matter whether you were beautiful or brilliant.

Even your gender and skin color will be irrelevant.

So what will matter? How will the value of your days be measured?
What will matter is not what you bought but what you built; not what you got but what you gave.

What will matter is not your success but your significance.

What will matter is not what you learned but what you taught.

What will matter is every act of integrity, compassion, courage,

or sacrifice that enriched, empowered, or encouraged others to emulate your example.

What will matter is not your competence but your character.

What will matter is not how many people you knew but how many will feel a lasting loss when you're gone.

What will matter is not your memories but the memories of those who loved you.

What will matter is how long you will be remembered, by whom, and for what.

Living a life that matters doesn't happen by accident.

It's not a matter of circumstance but of choice.

Choose to live a life that matters.


Do you agree? What do you think about all this?

 

[Deardaddy]

It matters when a bar of choco doesn't interest you

 

[Wisdom3_1-9]

Do you agree? What do you think about all this?

Maybe an unpopular opinion here, but I do believe the sentiment of the poem. While I find the concept of nonexistence after death most scientifically plausible, I do believe in the human soul, and I think it lives on in the ways the text describes — the effect you have had on others.

It's also one of my main reasons for ctb. I've lived a life that matters and I can no longer do that. There's no point in prolonging my pain if "my work here is done," so to speak.

 

[Kill Bill]

Some days I would read this poem and feel like maybe some things do matter. Other days I'd be more nihilistic.

 

[agentgeez]

Where does this poem draw the line between what matters and what doesn't? It prioritises those 'sentimental' acts that we all know and love like kindness, compasssion, etc etc, but all other actions and feelings are unimportant, even though they're cut from the same cloth so to speak. We know both won't matter to the person who died, since they will be dead. Apparently things matter if they have an effect on others, but we know those lives are temporary too, so if your life doesn't matter why do theirs? In my opinion, some things matter now, some things will matter later, some different things will matter even later on, but when everything is truly ended, nothing will matter. So I don't see the point in obsessing over a future that will soon become the past, while simultaneously saying the present doesn't matter because that will also become the past. Everything's going to become the past someday.

 

[Wisdom3_1-9]

Apparently things matter if they have an effect on others, but we know those lives are temporary too, so if your life doesn't matter why do theirs?

I've had a rough go in this life that I didn't choose. If anything I can do during my life helps to lessen the suffering for others as they endure their unchosen journey, I think that's a good thing.

 

[agentgeez]

I've had a rough go in this life that I didn't choose. If anything I can do during my life helps to lessen the suffering for others as they endure their unchosen journey, I think that's a good thing.

I agree with that, I think it's good to help others too. What I'm saying is that you can't simultaneously say that it doesn't matter to make yourself happy while also saying that it does matter to make others happy. If one matters, the other does too. Because the logic used to say yours doesn't matter is that it's temporary, but all lives are temporary.

 

[Kill Bill]

I've had a rough go in this life that I didn't choose. If anything I can do during my life helps to lessen the suffering for others as they endure their unchosen journey, I think that's a good thing.

So things can matter to you now and even when you're dead your actions can still matter to others. And their actions influenced by your actions can matter to others and so on.
If life as we know it were wiped out by a massive extinction event. Would all actions then cease to matter because nobody would be around to matter about it?

 

[Kill Bill]

10,000 years 100,000 years

 

[Superdeterminist]

Disagree. I don't think one can claim anything objectively matters. For me, what matters is the elimination of all unwanted suffering, but others will say this doesn't matter so much to them.

 

[Wisdom3_1-9]

In 100 years what is going to matter that an individual does now today?

in 500 years ?

Well, we are here on this forum communicating with each other because people before us continued a pattern of scientific development and understanding. If I had more faith in humanity, I would perhaps think that we could keep building towards some sort of ideal existence — the kind of society where the challenges that lead us to feel such constant despair no longer exist. I just know that human nature is to fuck everything up.

 

[XYZ]

What will matter is not your success but your significance.

What will matter is not what you learned but what you taught.

What will matter is every act of integrity, compassion, courage,

or sacrifice that enriched, empowered, or encouraged others to emulate your example.

I get why happy, normal people would find this message uplifting. For fucked up losers such as myself who neither enriched nor taught anything to anyone, it just sounds like a long meme you scroll past on your Facebook feed. The kind that shows a man with arms wide open greeting the sun under a caption that goes smth like this "Start each day with hope, smiles and enthusiasm".
I'm just an ol Grinch. NO, I will not start my day with no hope. And NO, I will not matter.

 

[Kill Bill]

 

[CarbonMonoxide]

So I don't see the point in obsessing over a future that will soon become the past, while simultaneously saying the present doesn't matter because that will also become the past. Everything's going to become the past someday.

Great post my friend. This has become my thought process on the futility of this version of life. All the hard work, the relationships, the joy, pain and everything else about this life cease to matter when you die. You're erased from reality as if you never existed. It attracts me to ctb knowing that even if I rose up and solved my problems, one day I'll STILL die and forget everything. As if it never happened. It's so depressing but unfortunately also so true.

 

[GoodPersonEffed]

I think the poem is valuable for life, to consider what kind of impact we have on others. Would people be glad or sorry to see us go, whether from a place, a forum, or from life? If they valued us because of the things we have, then it's not us that they valued, and so if we lost those things, they would no longer want us around. If we experience everything in the poem during life, I think it's a very rich life.

If we had a condition like depression or mental illness or addiction that had a negative impact on our relationships, then that is a travesty. Such conditions take away our life force, our abilities, and our goodwill that we would otherwise likely want to demonstrate to others and receive in return.

Of course it's important to us what we enjoy in life, whether possessions or the things money can buy, but without satisfying relationships they themselves can usually only satisfy for so long. The value of a thing is in its utility and how much it can be enjoyed while using it.

The only thing I disagree with in the poem is that I believe it matters what we learn. Learning is a foundational need from the moment we are born. Without having learned, how could one experience all that the poem extolls? Learning has made me a better person. It's taught me what is worthy of seeking and what is not. Even learning religion taught me by engaging with it that it did not bring me value.