I was perusing Joi Ito’s explanation of the Japanese reaction to the Japanese hostages in Iraq, when I remarked upon a peculiar statement.
Joi remarked:
“I have something like 16 or so generations before me on my gravestone and I often feel like a mere blip in the history of my family.”
Talk about heavy. I had to wonder about Japanese burial customs, so I shot Joi an email, fully expecting the email to land in /dev/null and never get answered:
“At the risk of betraying my ignorance of Japanese burial customs, I have to ask: am I to understand from this sentence that you already have a gravestone prepared? That seems a bit, uhm, overly pessimistic to me.”
To which Joi, surprisingly, responded:
“I will [be] buried in the same grave as my ancestors. We are cremated and my ashes will be dumped on top of all of my relatives. ;-)”
Whoa. Talk about a weighty responsibility. I’ve always figured most people want to be remembered when they’ve passed on – I know I do. But on the other hand, to glower from the depths of history at those who come after me might be a legacy I’d rather skip. I already feel the pressure of trying to live up to the achievements of non-relatives, to make my place in history (and failing at it, now that I come to think of it), and I’m glad to live in blissful ignorance of my family tree, if only to avoid additional pressure.
Then again, part of me is curious. I find myself asking “is this it?” a little too often, so perhaps the benefit of the stories and wisdom of 16 generations of relatives would be somewhat comforting. Or informative at the very least – what were the things that really mattered to them, made them keep going, rather than deciding not to wash their clothes and risk death by the Black Plague? Maybe the pressure would be worth the wisdom – as long as it wasn’t something lame like “we are all, like, dust – dust in the wind. Dude.”