Anyway, here's the song embedded below. It's called "Pyramid" by Jason Webley.
Now, according to the top comment, there is some fascinating backstory to this song.
I choose to accept that it is a good story, based on real events or otherwise. The depth that it adds to the lyrics and the emotion in the song still strikes me in particular place in my chest every time, with something that's not quite melancholy or regret but still sits with a peculiar kind of weight that has left me introspective but not sad.
The narrator is speaking to the memory of a woman named Margaret who has presumably died some time ago. He starts with some basic questions that one might ask a ghost, asking about their perspective, now that they're dead as they have been watching other people carry on with their own experiences, too. Then, the narrator notes with some real sympathy "They started stacking stones the very day that you were born," referring to the tomb that she would eventually be buried in, asking her whether it haunted her that regardless of whatever she did in her life that she would still end up there in the family tomb: "Does that long shadow follow you?"
And then the next stanza starts to see her more as a full-bodied person, recognizing more feeling and character than just a generic, sympathetic figure. The narrator takes this into account, still acknowledging that he doesn't really know anything about her: "Forgive me, Margaret, all the liberties I've taken...I've projected you in costumes I don't think were quite your size." He knows that even in the lines of poetry that he has of her, these scraps and pieces of her do not truly capture who she was nor necessarily how he has chosen to present her. After the narrator has acknowledged this, he expresses in the next stanza a particular longing to truly know her while still recognizing that she is unreachable, coming to the conclusion that she could even be hiding.
The final stanza, then, turns to the narrator. How does he want to be remembered when he dies? "Would it please me when someone lights a candle and says my name?" He's not sure what Margaret would want still, asking would she prefer "To be left at the bottom of a garbage bin or dusted off and pulled up on the stage?" Would she want all of this pomp and ceremony to be the subject of a song or to be left alone in the quiet darkness of the garbage bin? When he is asking Margaret here, he not only seems to be asking for additional forgiveness for potentially exploiting her, but he's also asking himself what would he want. Would he want to be left to the garbage bin--completely forgotten and lost to time and memory? Or would he have someone whispering prayers and condolences by lighting a candle, held up with warmth and ritual? The final option seems to be something in between: "Will I say 'leave me in my pyramid, blow out the flame, and close the lid/ the story's done; why can't we turn the page?'" It is the final option for a reason, almost demanding that we stop asking already--just let the past be the past and move on. Stop thinking about it and live your life.
The song then ruminates over those three options. The lament of being forgotten, reverberating sixteen times in the sad, descending chant of "at the bottom of the garbage bin." The fear of being lost shifts to nine instances of gratitude, uncertainty, and reverence in the flowing question of "would it please me if someone lights a candle and says my name?" Bridging the two together are four iterations of the urgent, maybe even exasperated, cry to be left alone in the tomb, a relic of a previous time as the world continues on with "Leave me in my pyramid."
I don't think he comes to a conclusion. And for that matter, neither have I. But I certainly have been thinking about it a lot. To be fair, though, I think I've thought about death more than the average person my age. There is a cultural norm to joke about your age at a certain point, that it's something to be ashamed of. In those situations, I tend to shrug and say "I'm just happy to be here." There have been a few points in my life, with all of my health hoopla, that I could have died--I've said as much in other blogs before. That particular awareness of my own mortality has led to a lot of interesting shower conversations, but I don't think I can claim to have sorted out every piece of it. Death itself doesn't scare me, but I realized somewhere that I hadn't thought as much about any kind of legacy.
There's a lot to unpack there. Seeking to be remembered is seeking immortality. Average people--not just supervillains--can be obsessed with immortality. I've met more than one person whose drive to do something or be someone in this lifetime is ultimately more about being a beacon that the future can look back on, as a shining example or someone to be grateful toward or just a name that would be familiar to people years down the road. Memorials. Scrapbooks and videos. Tombstones and mausoleums. A plaque on the wall. We cannot control how our story is told (*cue Hamilton soundtrack...*), but people want to, and not always for themselves, sometimes in an effort for another loved one, to see that they're remembered "correctly." If I had the opportunity to control it, how would I want to be remembered? How does this obsession drive us?
To complicate it further, I know that I have no real understand of what my actual impact is in the world. I know, without ego, that the world would be a different place without me in it--my life intersects with so many others in ways that I can never understand, even if I'm just the friendly face that was kind to a cashier. I'm a background character in the lives of so many people.
Mostly, I'm at peace with that. There are those who think I'm a terrible person--maybe I accidentally cut them off in traffic or beat them out for a position or was overheard with a comment out of context in the brief crossing of paths that we had, where I was a faceless antagonist. My best hope is that I leave a more positive impression on people as a whole, that maybe kind words, authentic smiles, and the like outweigh those other impressions, where I am still nameless and quickly forgotten by that individual but with a particular residual warmth. And the people that know me better, I hope something similar, that whatever impact I have weighs toward the positive.
When trying to evaluate existential questions of purpose and philosophical tangents of truth and identity, it's a subtle but important point for me to not fixate on trying to be immortal. I'm sad to let important periods of time pass and end, but I also don't see much point to fighting it, even if that ultimately means after I die that I have less and less to do with the world as the memories of those that loved me die, too. My sense of self exists independently, even if we take the idea that it fades to nothingness after death. I will have touched countless lives--for better or worse--just as others have graced mine, short brushes of interaction to deep friendships. As such, my own attitude towards death and time seem to culminate as a thirst for purpose but not immortality.
I think it is more important to change the world you're in for the better because it is the right thing to do, rather than seeking to be remembered for it. Perhaps finding immortality as a lasting, positive impact on the world, whether or not your face is tied to it, is more of the point, that the ripple effect of your presence inspiring others mostly toward something good. I have been affected by family members I've never met in this way, so why not strangers, too? What immeasurable changes have I brought to those around me and those I've never met simply by being who I am? Those experiences and the choices that I make live on in a way that is no longer a part of me anymore. How will I be remembered through that presence?
Does it matter?
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