Memory, lived reality & morality

Yes.. its over. I hope.

Now to start on catching up on the backlog of work. Prior to that I went to some of the sites my friends have been bloggin at. Really quite amusing. One of them was musing about how a bench got thrown into a canal... Weird things people do.

Some time back I was thinking about the issue of memory. You can consider yourself to have 'lived' if someone remembers you right? What if those people who do pass on? Does it mean you cease to exist? A name, just like any other names, on a tombstone/tablet just like any other.

Then something came to mind. Maybe it doesnt matter if you're someone who did immense good for the people, or simply a trusting fella who was caught in trying times (Dubcek in Czechoslovakia). They are extra-ordinary because they possess certain attributes that favours them in their present circumstances.

If Hitler, Stalin and other well-known mass killers wanted to leave a legacy, they were highly successful. If your aim was for someone to remember you, the morality of your actions doesn't really feature in does it? We remember these people, not pleasantly though, but they're never forgotten because the enormity of their actions doesnt allow us or society to forget them.
Wonder if they ever thought about this when they acted the way they did.