Your name's been blotted from the Book of Life.
Things you know you did are forgotten.
People you knew no longer know you.
Happened to me yesterday ... again.
Sitting in a conference with others, I listened as a bright young face delivered the history of world as she knows ... which is far different from the history I helped make.
One of the things I've learned about surviving this long is people have short memories ... choosing to not remember who, or what, got them here ... preferring to believe they've done it themselves and nothing could have possibly happened before they burst on the scene.
I try to remember.
I've stood on the shoulder of giants and can name them all.
There's also been some who stood on my shoulders and can't seem to remember a damn thing.
It gives me perspective.
"What is man that thou aren't mindful of him?" is an old and sexist way to put it.
"For everything there is a season ... and time ... and purpose under Heaven," is another way of coming to terms with who I am ... what I've done ... and I'm doing now.
"Well, I guess you had to be there," is what I sat there thinking as the bright young face who's never stood on the shoulder of a giant because she's too busy believing she'd doing it for the first time.
"I guess you had to be there ... it was a Hell of a ride."
As she rambles on about nothing new, my mind turnes to my favorite quote of Bob Dylan.
When asked if he could write "Blowing in the Wind" or something like it again ... he shrugs his shoulder and answers ... "I did it once. I'll do something else now."
In time people are going to forget Bob Dylan ... like Brian Wilson ... Kohelet who wrote Ecclesiastes ... the nameless man who asked God a question that's endured until now.
It's okay to be forgotten ... as long as you're doing something else now.
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