Legacies

I've been thinking a lot about identity lately. Probably because I've had to research the lives and legacies of various practitioners for my Dissertation. Get's one thinking about how they'll go down in history, and what people will say about them when their gone, surviving only as a memory.

I wonder how my name will go down in history? I mean, I'm not even the first "Thomas Barnett", and my predecessor... we, he'd a dick. Oh, he has his moments of niceties, but when the chips are down, he's primary concern is himself. Is that how my name will be remembered, forever associated with a man who burned too many bridges and was left adrift in a cage of his own making? Or have I brought redemption to a name I only got due to a coin flip (if you believe one parent's account, that is), a name I don't even like. (Why did teenage me stop calling himself "Gabriel"?)

Funny things names. You don't get a say in what your called, and everyone else uses it more than you do. All you can do is own it, and build something from it; a reputation of love, fear, happiest, saddest or complexity.

When all my scheming and joking is done, what will my legacy be? What will the name "Thomas Barnett" be remembered for?

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