Sonder, Fame, and One's Public Legacy *OR* I Am Not Obi Wan · 5:55am Jul 9th, 2015
“I tell my younger friends that one day they'll be at a bar playing pool and they'll look up at the television set and there will be a picture of Princess Leia with two dates underneath, and they'll say, 'awww -- she said that would happen.' and go back to playing pool.”
-Carrie Fisher; Wishful Drinking
“There might be a shortage of perfect breasts in the world, but there is no shortage of actors who have achieved a degree of recognition or fame due to the popularity – or in some cases the ignominy, which is an entirely different story – of a specific movie and their role within that movie. It can become a blessing or a curse depending on the circumstances.”
“I've had the pleasure of being in hundreds of movies and television shows […] but whatever else I might do, The Princess Bride would always be the one with which I am most closely associated and Westley – with his wisp of a mustache and ponytail – the character with whom I will be forever linked.”
-Cary Elwes, As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales From the Making of The Princess Bride
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Here's a question for you all to ponder; those of you with aspirations of the creative sort (writing, acting, etc) or not, because I feel like this might be something that could be relevant to everyone.
What would be the thing you would most like to be known for in this world, the thing that would be the mark you leave here for future generations when you have shuffled off to whatever comes next? Would you be fine with being only known for one thing you did, one part of your life that may not actually have taken up that much space in your full time-line?
I started thinking about this a little bit just after Leonard Nimoy passed away, and then more after attending Everfree in May and getting to meet/listen to John De Lancie. There are countless numbers of people – especially in entertainment – who no matter how many things they have done on or off the screen there will always be 'that one thing' that is their lasting legacy and they will be forever associated with for the rest of and even after their lives.
Some like the people from whose books I borrowed the quotes above (which you should totally go and buy to read/listen to btw) are somewhere between being fine with it (Fisher) and being absolutely thrilled (Elwes).
But there are still others (and maybe more in this category) that not only hated the role/project that they're linked to, but hated being associated with it at all (or became disenchanted with it as it seemed to overshadow everything else they had done).
Sir Alec Guinness (im)famously grew to detest the Star Wars films and his association with them as Obi Wan Kenobi (despite liking the character initially). Depending on who you ask it seems he didn't think much of the movie during filming, and didn't feel it quite deserved all the praise/recognition it got over so many of the projects he'd done that he had enjoyed more.
And you can understand Sir Guinness's side (from a certain point of view), because if you were to poll any random ten people about him, almost none of those people could tell you any other thing he'd done besides Star Wars. (Uber nerds and theater nerds don't count, I'm talking John and Jane Normal-Viewer from Ohio or somewhere.) I mean, I certainly couldn't before actually doing a little research for this post.
I learned some interesting stuff about some of these people. Like I did knew that Leonard Nimoy was Jewish and that the Vulcan salute was somewhat based on a Jewish blessing (being an uber nerd and all), but I didn't know that his parents were immigrants who had legit fled Stalinist Russia. Before I read their books I didn't know that Cary Elwes was a production assistant before he got his start and actually drove Roger Moore around in a car once, or that Carrie Fisher had written another book that got turned into a movie (Postcards From the Edge. Here I am the Jane Normal-Viewer).
While this isn't entirely about learning things about those people apart from their roles so much as seeing them as more than just their roles, I think the former could help with the latter.
While at Everfree I was lucky enough to attend a small private-ish event (no cameras/recording was allowed) where John De Lancie read for us this beautiful, heartfelt speech he had written when he was speaking at a college that made more than a few of us in the audience cry. It wasn't related to his roles on tv or film, no Q or Discord to be found there. It was about the man sharing a personal story of his life, and that went a long way into getting me to ponder this weird prospect.
I get that most of the time we don't have the luxury of face-time with these people who touch our lives in such a small (yet sometimes very impactful) way, so it's easy to paint them with broad, flat strokes, to put them in one category.
We do that in our own lives, too. We hardly ever think about the lives of the people around us; our co-workers, classmates, teachers, even our family. How many of you can name all the jobs your parents had before they had you? What did your mom want to be when she grew up? How many girls did your grandfather date before he met your grandmother?
The role of 'co-worker', 'grandmother', or 'bus driver' that a person has in your life is just one small part of their own, rich history. I think there's an apt word for this: Sonder. The feeling you get when you realize that everyone you meet is living their own lives with their own thoughts and worries and goals. To them you might just fit into one role, and they might not see too far past it. It's hard to forget that we're the main character of our story, but just a background pony in other people's. (and you guys thought Slice of Life was all about headcanons and memes ;P)
But this brings me back to my original point (Wait, did I have one?) and original question:
What is the thing you think you'll be known for, or would like to be known for as your 'legacy' or your 'one thing'. And would you be fine with that if you did leave this world tomorrow?
Speaking for myself, I don't really know what my legacy would be, or even really what I'd like it to be. I think maybe I could think about it in tiers; where the people closest to me might remember me one way and for some things, and the rest of the world - however far I've reached - could remember me for something else. I don't know if I'd rather be linked with just one part of my life/one thing I voiced in or wrote, or if I'd rather the world know me for a wider array of things so that people might be a wider picture of me. No matter how much I do end up doing with my life, or how many roles I get or stories I write, in the end I can't change people's opinions of me or what they end of remembering about me when I'm gone. I might be lucky enough to be associated with something I love like Elwes, or I may go to the end of my days wondering why *this* was the thing and not this other thing like Sir Guinness.
This was a bit of a ramble, but at least it was a semi-researched ramble. I think it's something at least for people to think about. I have more examples/things to say but this post got long enough already and I'd like their to be a discussion.
I'll get back to my horse words now. ;P
ALOFC
-Ckat_Myla
I want to be known as the author of the most MLP fanfics sometime before 2018 when the fandom eventually dies.
Over all, I want to be known for making the world a better place.
In the context of the MLP fandom, I think that for quite a few people the first fanfic that I wrote is the one that's going to be forever tied to my name. I've written others since, and in my opinion many of those later works are better, but my first story got on EqD way back at the end of 2011, took off pretty well because EqD produced a lot of hits back then, and for better or worse it's just the "big thing" that I've done (so far).
I'm okay with this. I'm glad about it, actually, because of one reader in particular who really connected with me and understood what this story was talking about. She told me that it helped her sort through and deal with some things in her own life and helped her get better, and that meant a lot to me. If it made things better for one person, then it was worth it.
Overall, I don't think a legacy in an overarching big-picture sense is something that can be shaped through deliberation or engineering. You just have to do what you think is best and do what you love, day by day, and the chips are going to fall where they will on how that gets remembered. It's not something that should be worried about. It happens on its own.