To not being remembered

I am reminded of those times I talk to an underclassman about a really amazing member of the Class of 2012 or 2011, and they, understandably, have no idea who I’m talking about. When they were here and they were running our groups and activities, we thought, “How will we possibly live without them?” And now underclassmen are saying the same thing about my class. It’s a relentless cycle. So much of this place stays the same, but we only get a snapshot of the people here. Anyone who falls outside the window of 2010–2016, I’m sorry, but I’ll never know the Princeton you know. I won’t ever know your names. Our journeys do not intersect.

But is that really true? I often tell the story of how a club I helped found commissioned me to put together a logo, which I did at 2 a.m. one random morning. That became the official symbol of the group, and it stuck, and now it is on all of our folders and stickers and pencils and posters. I like to say that after hundreds of hours working on my thesis and thousands of hours devoted to theater on campus, the only thing that will outlive me here is an early morning creation with MS Paint. And though I like this story, I don’t think it’s true at all — that’s not all I’ve left here.

I’m sure that some of you have seen the following inspirational quote, or some variant of it, somewhere: “You die twice: once when you stop breathing, and once when your name is said for the last time.” I see the point, and I appreciate the sentiment it’s getting at, but I feel like it goes about it in the wrong way. There is too much of an obsession with our own name, making a name for ourselves, really being “somebody.” The truth is — and it’s a hard truth to swallow — most of us won’t be remembered here five or so years hence. But we don’t need to have the next generation of Princetonians telling stories about us, and we don’t need to be able to point to something concrete like an admittedly uninspired logo, to know that we mattered here.

I’m not trying to be some faux-inspirational poster and tell you that you should forget what everyone thinks about you and just try to make some small difference in the world. What I’m saying is, like it or not, people will forget what they think about you. So, if you’ll forgive a senior for a moment of sentimentality, think about the people with whom you made personal connections, think of all you have learned about yourself and others, think about the small ways you steered the campus this way or that. This is not a philosophy to live by; it’s a way to look back and be able to appreciate your role in something without needing your name carved in it. The Class of 2017 won’t know who you are any more than you will know who they are, but they walk on a road you helped pave. Be proud of that.

And so with that, I bid you farewell, dear readers. There are those of you (a vocal bunch indeed) who will be glad my byline will never again appear on this page, there are others (at least I few I hope) who found some of what I said interesting and worthy of consideration, and then, of course, there are those who do not really keep track of ‘Prince’ columnists and are simply paging through the campus newspaper on a Wednesday in May. To the first group, I say thank you for making me a more thoughtful and careful writer; to the second, I say thank you for your constant encouragement and support; to the third, I say let this be a lesson not to be afraid that your name and image will not be branded in the minds of every Princetonian. Do your best, smile and exeunt.

Luke Massa is a philosophy major from Ridley Park, Pa. He can be reached at lmassa@princeton.edu.