Everyone is already writing their lives with disappearing ink (whether as auto mechanics or second basemen, or writers, and so forth). Everything we do will evaporate and be unrecallable after a few years, decades at most. So, we’re all using evaporating ink, readable only for a short while.

But I think most of us tend to feel that we are doing something meaningful or “necessary”, even though many of us know that “personal legacy” is an illusion. So, for many the need to do something meaningful has nothing to do with creating a personal legacy. It’s unrelated to the length of time the ink of our activities remains visible.

Let’s test this.

So, now let’s reduce the ink’s lasting mark to only 1 year. If you and I knew that everything we’re going to do would disappear in 1 year – that our names would be forgotten, our children and grandchildren would forget us (which they do after a generation or two or three at most), would we still put our heart into what we’re doing?

My feeling is that about 95% of us would stop being motivated if we knew that every trace of our good name would disappear from consciousness in one year. But five percent would probably continue. (I’m basing this guess on the 3.5% rule, and rounding up to 5%. This rule essentially identifies the critical mass of a population necessary for revolution. I’m projecting this “rule” as a general mark for how many people at any given time are radically motivated to act on behalf of something larger than themselves, including a world that extends beyond their own spilled ink).

Why would 5% continue to “write” their lives if they knew their work would disappear so quickly?

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