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I was driving back to the hospital after grabbing some lunch today when I heard a rebroadcast of Terry Gross's interview of British historian Tony Judt. Judt died last week from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (what we in the States call Lou Gehrig's disease).

I had never heard of Tony Judt before but from the interview, recorded just this past March, he seemed like he had his shit together. There was one particular section that really caught my attention:

GROSS: You know, many people, when afflicted with a disabling disease, turn away from God. You were brought up in a secular Jewish home.

Mr. JUDT: That's right.

GROSS: And you remained secular. So has being sick changed any of your personal views about religion?

Mr. JUDT: No, but the no is very straightforward. I don't believe in an afterlife. I don't believe in a single or indeed multiple godhead. I respect people who do, but I don't believe it myself. But there's a big but which enters in here.

I am much more conscious than I ever was, for obvious reasons, of what it will mean to people left behind once I'm dead. It won't mean anything to me. But it will mean a lot to them. And it's important for them, by which I mean my children or my wife or very close friends, that some spirit of me is in a positive way present in their lives, in their heads, in their imaginings and so on.

So in one curious way I've come to believe in the afterlife as a place where I still have moral responsibilities, just as I do in this life, except that I can only exercise them before I get there. Once I'm there, it'll be too late. So no god, no organized religion, but a developing sense that there's something bigger than the world we live in, including after we die, and that we have responsibilities in that world.

I really liked the idea of your legacy, how you are remembered by the ones you leave behind, as your afterlife. You own that legacy and it is your responsibility, and (as awful as this sounds) this life is the only time allotted to build positive personal brand management.

Certainly this idea is elegantly expressed in the final moments of The Sonosopher when Alex Caldiero remembers the final words of his dying mother, "Remember me...and pass me on." Caldiero goes on on to say that memory is immortality, "Immortality doesn't exist in freaking heaven; immortality exists in the human mind and the human soul."

I would add that immortality also endures via the artifacts we left behind, certainly the physical objects we used but also the writing and art we managed to produce. As an ethnic Mormon I have inherited a strong cultural legacy of journaling, but I dare say no other generation has more extensively chronicled their lives than the social media generation. And I don't see a decline in the curve toward self reporting coming any time soon. The twin factors of our self-obsession and the eternal nature of digital information on the internet will provide our descendents with reams of material that will make the pioneers look like camera-shy wallflowers in comparison.

The big question that Judt and Caldiero bring up is will our successors benefit from us? Will our pursuit of a noble and moral life be recognized? Will we be featured on My Parents Were Awesome? I really appreciate Judt's notion that legacy management is not for the edification of the individual who dies. "It won't mean anything to me. But it will mean a lot to them. And it's important for them..." Living my life for someone else...just one of the things that I am just beginning to ponder during my first 24 hours of being a dad.

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Many of you know that for the past few years I have been involved with the production of a documentary film that focuses on the life of UVU professor/artist Alex Caldiero. Last night I was lucky enough to see a rough cut of the film.
The project has been a collaboration of two amazing UVU Integrated Studies students named Torben and Travis. These guys, with the help of a handful of other students, have put together something quite amazing. I can't wait for you all to see it, and you will get your chance soon enough.
Alex Caldiero is a weird and wonderful man, and this movie captures him and his work so completely. When you see this movie (and trust me, you are all going to see this movie) you are going to be blown away by Alex and by the fact that this is a student project.
UVU does a lot of talk about engagement these days. OK, they beat the term to death most times. What bothers many on our campus is the fact that this idea of engaging students with learning by getting their hands dirty in the real world is not something new. It is often presented as a top-down mandate from the powers at be. The truth is that real engagement has been happening here all along and that only now does it finally have a name and a marketing campaign.
This film is also an example of what is possible in local cinema. As Torben and Travis have been slugging along with The Sonosopher, there are two other Utah Valley documentary projects that I have been lucky enough to be at least mildly involved with. One is from former UVU student Matt Eastin and the other is from two guys named Andrew and Josh. All three movies couldn't be more different, and yet all of them have things in common. In future posts I will tell you more about these other films, and about the exciting future of filmmaking in Utah Valley.
For now I just want to say how proud I am of Torben and Travis. They have made something very special and I know you folks are going to love it.

Check out www.thesonosopher.com in the coming weeks for more details.

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