Of the 40+ print magazines I worked on, less than 5% are still in print.

Of the games I’ve worked on as a writer, at least half didn’t make it out of the starting gate. (One, called Legacy, came out this year and is almost impossible to access. I don’t know anyone who’s played it.)

Of the games I worked on in marketing, most are unplayable on modern hardware – MMOs, games for older generation consoles, even recent GAAS games that failed on launch.

Of the photos I took as a photographer ten years ago, they’re stuck. Hosted on a site that’s been sold over and over, and now hides them from the world. (Its marketing team kindly reaches out each week to say that they’re going to delete them all unless I pay a ransom fee.)

…

Creatively, we write our names in the sand. I take joy in this process – in the creation itself – but I do not expect the things I make to last my lifetime. Work is evanescent, fame fleeting. Immortality only exists in fairytales.

The legacy I leave will be purely in the hearts and minds of the people I know and love. And that too will fade.

Daily writing prompt

What is the legacy you want to leave behind?

View all responses