Someone picked up a shell and placed it in the middle of a random rock. All the subsequent passersby passed this shell but few might have actually seen it. Those who actually looked might have caught a glimpse. I was luckily one of them. I looked at flowers and dead timber, as per usual, but the small single shell stuck out. Somehow I managed to see it betwixt the many other things.

And it got me thinking about one's legacy.

As humans, we are obsessed with leaving some trace of ourselves behind. We sent a disc of some sort into space with the faintest of hope that those who find it can translate our funny language. Many cave paintings exist depicting great battles, random hands, and from the earliest ones, massive sex organs. We are so obsessed with leaving behind something that we forget something so crucial:

We are the only ones in possession of the key to unlock these secrets.

What does this shell mean? I have no idea. I am not in possession of the key to unlock the mystery behind this simple symbol. Maybe it was a child who got fascinated by the texture of the shell and subsequently placed it on the rock for another passerby to pick up so that she/he can also marvel at its simplistic beauty. Maybe it was a son who placed it there as a reminder of where he placed his mother's ashes. Every weekend he walks the trail and places the shell there, or a new one. Or, by chance, a bird dropped it from the sky and it landed there like that and I am writing this whole post based on a random occurrence of utmost improbability.

The point remains, I have absolutely no way with my current knowledge to decipher this code. But we can somehow decipher some other codes.

Not 100 meters from the shell, there were footsteps in the concrete walkway. It is from a dog, most likely. It happened by chance, most likely. The owner did not see the cement was wet, maybe she did not care that it was. More likely, it was a stray dog walking the pathway because there were no human footprints. Unless the owner walked beside the dog thus not walking in the pathway.

The point is that we can kind of decipher the code because we have extra information. Concrete can last a while, but dogs not. Imagine a world where all the dogs have subsequently died and no documentation exist which can be viewed. A passerby will have no idea what these markings are. Strange ancient languages? Humanoids leaving their marks? Perchance accidents?

The key is important to unlock the cipher, the code, the message, the legacy.

On that very walkway or trail, various benches showcase these long-gone legacies of people. Rather than merely using a shell, they buy these "forever" benches and write their names on them. Family can bring shells or flowers, they can thus remember their loved ones.

Again, there is this dire need to be remembered. It also needs a key: family members that have this key, i.e., remembering the names, the spot, and so on. It means something to someone, and without that someone the key is lost forever. The names become mere symbols, unrecognizable, merely familiar.

That is until the plaque with the names also fades away. Merely the bench remains. A place where people sit, no flowers, no shells, no memory of who it symbolized.

And now I am back at the shell. The bench becomes a shell that someone placed there. The legacy, that is, the key, is long gone. It is a disk with foreign writing floating in space. It is a random footstep in wet concrete with no animal remaining to fill the footstep.

And this is our legacy. A mere shell on a rock.

But this should not inspire dread or fear, or the dreaded Nihilism popular amongst some who would want us to relinquish hope.

For the shell remains until the next passerby picks it up to marvel at its simplistic beauty.

Postscriptum

I hope you enjoyed the rather philosophical musings (reflections) about legacy and so on. A small shell really did inspire all of this, and the plaques on the benches helped me think more about it.

In my home language of Afrikaans, we write "nalatenskap" when we want to say legacy. But the word contains so much more. It can mean legacy, inheritance, and so on. But when you break down the word into its constituent parts, it means (to me) the things you leave behind. Like that little shell on the rock.

This is the first time I posted in this community. I hope I followed all of the rules! If not, please let me know. I am looking forward to discussions and engaging with others!

All of the photographs are my own, taken with my Nikon D300 and Nikkor lens. The musings and reflections are also my own.