Becoming Ancestors

“Seek not the paths of the ancients; seek that which the ancients sought.” -Matsuo Basho.

In a message to my generation, I would echo the words of Adam Grant: “It’s more important to be good ancestors than dutiful descendants.”

It may sound presumptuous, even arrogant to bring up the topic that we ourselves are becoming ancestors. After all, we are the ones making mistakes, bumping around through life and trying to figure things out for ourselves. We’re supposed to be learning and benefiting from the lessons of our forebears.

But we need to discuss this topic anyways, comfortable or not. Because the truth is that we will be the ancestors of a future generation. And it’s just around the corner, not thousands of years away. The generation is already alive to whom we will gift a world to live in. Right now is the time that we are making our marks. Right now we are doing the deeds that we will be defined by. That’s such a big deal that it deserves some thought. So let’s think about it and make some decisions.

Firstly, what is an ancestor? Ancestors are the ones who came before. They’re often thought of as the people who blazed the trails, the ones who showed the way. They won the battles, defeated the enemies, explored continents, wrote down knowledge and freed captives and slaves. They’re the heroes we tell stories about. But you don’t have to be a storied thing of legend to be a great ancestor. It’s more about showing a better way than the way we were given to walk. It’s about overcoming some obstacle so that the next ones don’t have to face it. It’s about not running from the problems of our generation.

How to we do any of that? Many things could be said about fixing the problems of our generation, but for now I’ll just list a few conceptual things and let each of us apply them as we see best.

Win a victory

The most notable things in the stories of our ancestors is the amazing victories they won, fighting at great cost against ferocious enemies. So what about us? Have we no need to fight any more? Are all of our foes conquered? What about the enemies of injustice, corruption and oppression? Those are still to be found in our world. And even more common are the personal enemies that families struggle with for generations. Those might be anger, abuse, fear, dishonesty and greed. Each one is an enemy as real and often as destructive as a horde of literal warriors. Let’s win some victories in our lifetimes over those things and allow the next generation to start higher than we did.

Build a bridge

Some of the most enduring and still most relevant objects from the past are the bridges that span the worlds great rivers. Those bridges, sometimes hundreds or thousands of years old, never go out of style or fall out of use.

The problem of our life lessons being relevant in the future is very real. So let the things we build be like bridges, which never fall out of use. Crossing a river never becomes irrelevant.

What are the great rivers you. Grief? Estrangement from family? Poverty? Trauma or PTSD? You may find a way to get through that difficulty yourself, but what of those to whom we leave this minefield of a world to? The lesson here is don’t just find a way across your river or difficulty. Build a bridge so someone after you can walk easily over and spend his energy on better things. We want our offspring’s journey to begin where ours ended, not to keep crashing up against the same problems and retracing the same steps.

Carve a stone

The problem with the future is that we won’t be there to say what we learned or did, or to warn them of the traps. It’s difficult to emulsify our experiences so that even we ourselves understand them, let alone in a way that somebody later on can find understandable and helpful.

That’s why the ancient peoples carved stones. Whenever something great took place, a record would be chiseled into a rock, so that an image would remain to tell something important. They also set up cairns, piles of stones that show the way. They mark migration routes and safe river crossings. They show where game could be found in winter.

I don’t mean you should get a chisel and go making busts out of boulders. But I do mean that we should exemplify something worthy in our generation, and we should memorialize the victories and discoveries. We should show the way. Experience only benefits ourselves unless we carve a stone. Don’t let the good and helpful victories be forgotten and wasted.

Our metaphorical stone carving has to be simple too. A native American once said, “It does not take many words to speak the truth.” I find that quote a good guiding light for what I should say, especially when considering speaking to future generations. Think of the things I’ve done. Is their point or lesson able to be captured by a simple two-figure stone carving? If not, it may be too complicated to be useful to the future.

Don’t plant a flag

Not all of the people we look up to as ancestors had admirable character. At the end of the day, some ancestors are just people who have been dead long enough that their deeds and personalities can be presented in a positive way. There are things we should not do as potential ancestors. I would say, Don’t plant a flag. There is a big difference between the concepts of carving a stone and planting a flag. A flag says, “This is mine. I claim ownership of this truth. I defy all others to benefit from my exploration. Certain people are welcome to it, but most are excluded.”

Whenever we win a victory or build a bridge, don’t plant a flag of pride that excludes the people we don’t like from walking our path. We don’t own this world, we simply borrow it from the future. So don’t accomplish something big and then claim it for some kingdom.

In conclusion, the time for us to consider our legacy is now. We are doing the legacy deeds today. What exactly are we doing? So go, do something great, something worthy of remembrance and relevant to the future. Win a victory, build a bridge and carve a stone. Stop thinking only of ourselves and make a world that’s better, more free and more prosperous for the generation that follows us. We are ancestors.