Though I’ve been really low on motivation the last two weeks due to a stupid slip back into eating gluten (and I’m starting to emerge from it but oy…), I’ve been thinking about sharing this particular idea for some time.
A lot of people write about the idea of legacy. What is the legacy you wish to leave behind you in the world? For some of our brains, that’s a pretty abstract concept that doesn’t lead to much past understanding. Meaning, for me, it doesn’t lead to action. Not so much.
But then I ran into the idea of artifacts as it relates to us personally and I can’t remember where but it stuck.
This isn’t about all the stuff in your house. I mean, I really wish more people would take Swedish Death Cleaning more seriously, because yeah, we don’t want your tchotchke and you’re basically asking others to clean up after you. (This doesn’t mean you should live with nothing but maybe, just maybe, if your house and garage and shed are packed to the gills, you could get rid of half of it. I know from experience that it won’t only NOT kill you to have an empty closet or even just some empty shelves, but it will make space in your life to breathe more deeply. For reals.)
Anyway…
What are these artifacts?
You know how on social media there are people who only ever share other people’s stuff (including fucking AI generated crap but that’s another post)? They never share any of their own thoughts, their own photos, their own art, nothing generated from their own minds and hearts.
It reminds me of a lot of those homes I just wrote about above. They are leaving behind bought stuff… nothing from their own hands or minds.
And that’s the artifacts we’re talking about: bits of you. Evidence of you having lived your life.
Not everyone is going to leave behind beautiful paintings like my husband or piles of published books like some of my friends.
But we can still leave behind bits of us… that journal you kept of the seasons? Priceless. Those pieces of art that you labored over out of pure joy? Priceless.
These are the things that matter. Not your freaking figurines.
How this can be motivating
For me, when I think about leaving behind artifacts of my life, it motivates me to make those videos (and build my YouTube so it’s full of my somatic dance principles). It motivates me to actually get writing, whether here or on socials or on the book files I have started. It motivates me to work on my teacher training manual.
It motivates me to plan the next choreography challenge. To build deeper community. To get out in the world and show my damn self.
So… thinking of the artifacts you’d like to leave behind, how could this motivate you?