How Will We Be Remembered

How Will We Be Remembered
Another Either / Or Essay

Allow me to get all my cards out for my readers to see. In 2008, I did the dance with death twice. While I wouldn’t want to relive either two dances, I wouldn’t delete them from my life. What I once viewed as a curse has become a transformative blessing. I know my clock is ticking; it is getting louder and louder.

You know that you will croak someday, intellectually. I can feel it in my gut. Trust me. When you dance successfully someday, you will come more alive due to doing the dance. That is the backstory for this essay.

I’m rattled by Donald the Dumb, a convicted felon, ad infinitum. I can’t come to terms with the mess Trump has made for himself, let alone for the thousands of people he has duped and hurt. Trump is driven to make people see him as a macho man even though he knows he’s a loser in everything he has done during his inane journey down the yellow brick road of his life. Trump is a loser in past, present, and future criminal trials.

The only thing Trump won was a presidential election. Well, he won due to the Electoral College. Clinton won 8 million more votes than he did. Trump was convicted on 34 felony charges. I can’t recall the total number of all the other felony charges against him in Washington, Florida, and Georgia. Trump has also been found guilty in many civil cases. He lost two cases dealing with E. Jean Carroll and one case in front of Judge Engeron. He has failed in nearly all his endeavors, some in court hearings like Trump University, Trump Steaks, Trump Airlines, Trump Vodka, Trump Magazine, Trump Mortgages, ad infinitum.

Trump wants his minions to see him as a winner, and some do. However, a neutral observer won’t see him as a winner. When confronted with the obvious stupid sayings or inane behavior, Trump claims that he is persecuted by “the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin...”

A photo of a lost man

Trump could have followed the instructions of mentors in the past. Nonetheless, he either didn’t read their stories or if someone read them to him, he decided not to follow their insight. One of his mentors could have been the main character in the novella Silas Marner by George Eliot, the pseudonym for Mary Ann Evans. Eliot wrote about the clone of Trump. Silas Marner was a greedy old man, but he saw the light.

In old days there were angels who came and took men by the hand and led them away from the city of destruction. We see no white-winged angels now. But yet men are led away from threatening destruction: a hand is put into theirs, which leads them forth gently towards a calm and bright land, so that they look no more backward; and the hand may be a little child's.

Enter the Kierkegaardian either/or question. How will Trump be remembered when he croaks? Silas Marner is remembered for seeing the light. The first issue is whether there is life after death. If there is a God, that deity will decide who enters the pearly gates of heaven and who is sent to hell. God will look back and remember Trump’s life. While you aren’t some distant deity, how would you decide where Trump will wind up?

The other Kierkegaardian either/or relates to how history will remember him. When Trump is about to kick the bucket, I wonder whether he will realize that humanity will write his obituary and remember all his inane actions and juvenile behavior. It is too late for Trump to wake up and reverse his path. However, it isn’t too late for the rest of us.

We also have our own Kierkegaardian either/or dilemma. Either we live for the me, or we live for the we. Trump is in it for the me. He has to see his name on everything except indictments. As an alternative, I’d suggest my mantra. “It is in giving that you get.” If you want something in life, begin by giving to others. The more you give, the more you get. And Trump is an example of the converse of my mantra. The less you give, the less you will get.

It is in giving that you get, which isn’t the very essence of who you are. Wake up. You will live a hollow life on your life’s journey. You will merely become an angry old person reflecting on how life mistreated you. You will be wrong and angry...and poor.

My family and I took a family tour together in places where hardly ever American tourists visit. Such a place was Set Set Yo. While my family were giving the local young children gifts of pencils and notebooks, I was roaming around the small village, and by sheer happenstance, I discovered my great-granddaughter, A Ngal Lay.

Talk about a photo filled with emotions.

A Ngal Lay wasn’t quite a year old when we met. The photo haunts me. I would love to revisit sharing time with my great-granddaughter.

This is A Ngal Lay today. Than, a good friend and an excellent painter in Myanmar, did this portrait of my great-granddaughter.

This is A Ngal Lay today. She doesn’t remember me when we first met. However, Than’s portrait hangs in her home. I wonder what she thinks when her parents tell her she is in her painting.