The title of course is an outcome of Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity— one of many things with which he impacted our existence.

What legacy will I leave behind? Will I leave behind anything? DO I EVEN MATTER?

(Well, one thing is a certainty— I am leaving behind pages and pages of my thoughts and those with a couple of dollars might just buy you something??  Here is another addition to my mental ramblings.)

I believe we all yearn to make a difference— to do something that causes people to remember that we existed. I think we hope that somehow in some way the world is a “better place” because we came along.

Maybe to have said some memorable words that resonate throughout history like “I have a dream” or “that’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”. 

OR to be know for some great act of heroism in my final moments like Todd Beamer and others did on Flight 93, the hijacked plane that crashed in Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001.

I think we all want to make a difference or hope that we matter. 

I know I’d like for my art to live long after I’m gone, to continue to impact someone’s life. Hey it would tickle me for some art history major to HAVE TO learn my name and memorize a few works of mine (chuckle).

Sincerely I do feel that it is a great honor for someone to relate to one of my works and allow me to have the opportunity (through my art) to have a part in their life.

To garner everlasting notoriety is not why I paint but it would be nice if I did leave a “mark” on the artwork. (ha ha, see what I did there!?)

I recall vividly once lying in bed at the close of the day (feeling sorry for myself) and thinking “no one is going to remember me— 50 years from now. Not a soul will even know I ever existed. I will have done or left nothing monumental behind like a revered masterpiece of art to spark that memory.”

Truly at that moment I heard a voice (I’m sure it was in my mind but it resonated like it was literally audible)…

“You’ve got it all wrong. It is NOT: “by your existence will they remember YOU”. It is: BY YOUR EXISTENCE WILL THEY REMEMBER ME!”

I sat straight up in bed and looked at my wife beside me to see if there was a body between us, I swear the statement was clear and plainly stated.

He continued: “If what you seek is immortality— BRING THEM WITH YOU.”

I know Whom I thought was speaking to me-- regardless, it was surely food for thought and introspection for me.

I think a lot. At any given time I feel like I have 17 trains of thought going...busy busy mind. That is one thing that Einstein and I have in common. He to ran scenarios over and over in his head doing "mind games". He spent a lot of time day dreaming-- so do I. It keeps the days interesting to be sure.

Obtuse things run through my head often. Like advertising concepts when I'm in the shower or artistic creative solutions when walking to the mailbox. As such, I have no idea from whence the following came or what its possible impetus was for entering my mind but here it is: 

There are four poignant and deeply meaningful questions in this life— which lead to the answer to many others.

What is truly sacred?

Of what is our Spirit made?

What is worth living for?

What is worth dying for?

To my mind the answer to all those is one simple word “LOVE”.

The more science deepens in its understanding of “reality” the more I feel is kind of intangible and frankly beyond our current ability to fathom nor truly comprehend — but that doesn’t stop me from embracing the unknown and being thrilled with discovery.

You might say “Love is not a tangible substance”. If that is your thinking, fine. I disagree. You may say “our soul is only a hypothetical and not a real identifiable thing, certainly not a physical entity”. Fine again but again I think otherwise. No, I have no proof at all just a feeling, an inkling, that this realm is much much stranger than we can even imagine.

As I have stated in past posts, scientists believe that we only “see” 6+ percent of what is this reality. If that is so, can you really be certain that love is NOT a tangible and that the soul is only a human mental construct. 

The older I get the more I find fascination in “what could be”— even if only in Markie World, my personal amusement park/adventure land in my day dreaming brain. (I know many of you are thinking "wow, he never really came 'down' from getting high in his youth.")

For thousands of years man did not know of atoms and the we are made of billions and billions of microscopic elements joined together to form us and everything around us. What if “love” is a quantifiable thing like subatomic particles that we have yet to discover? What if God is a being of love and therefore we, made in the image of our creator, are beings made of love. 

When we die in this life-- is that it? Or does our soul live on in another dimension? Do we simply leave here to our next existence? I find it hard to believe that all our life experiences and knowledge gained would just disappear and evaporate at our ceasing to exist in this realm— would it not be logical that all that data would be compiled and used by “the cosmos” in its evolution.

I think that our creator, like a parent, is delighted by our awe and fascination and if I as suspect, this realm and this part of our journey is just a part of the ride, I look forward to our next adventure and the potential for continued exploration into the unknown— man oh man, what a ride this is, eh!?

My point in all this minutiae is that we do not know what is or what will be. We do not “know” why we are here really. But one thing I do know is that y0u matter— your being is purposeful and intended and without you this universe would not be complete. We do matter. We may not know now or ever recognize how but I feel certain that we are an essential part of this existence.

I’m glad we are on this journey together. 

Hands up high…Weeeeee!