# Stepping into history to row to the future

By [Ram](https://paragraph.com/@ram008) · 2024-09-28

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I have been a big history buff always. Culture, Traditions, norms, and hidden or obvious symbols always mean a lot to me. I am a student, an instant partaker and an avid explorer for various traditions and history. This is central to my identity and has led to my quest not just an embrace for diversity. I have cultural and symbolic norms and practices of my own. One of these norms is that when I meet people in a certain phase of my life or their life for the last time in that phase or role, I try to make those last moments memorable for me to remember them by. I do not worry if they will remember me as nothing really lasts, but for me, their memory matters for whatever the extent of our friendship or working relationship lasted. Sometimes I click a photo, not for posting on Instagram or a blog, but for posterity. Most times I ask the people for some artifact that they hold dear for me to keep. This is a symbol of their trust on me and in a way, me carrying a piece of their legacy. I don’t insist on any particular object and its material value barely even matters, but for me, that token is a good version of the Horcrux, whatever we might want to call it. A piece of them lives in that artifact.

Sometimes people gift me their hats, or a keychain, a commemorative coin, a Credly badge, an NFT, or a handwritten note. I keep these safely. I am a collector of memories, of artifacts and memories. Recently though, I got a memory that is hard for me to preserve for a long time but it is a larger symbol than anything else I have ever got from anyone else. It is a workspace. This person passed on their workspace to me before they left, indicating to me that this was their legacy that I was responsible to uphold.

This responsibility is a big one and I don’t know if I will be able to live up to it. But I am grateful to even considered to be a recipient. We obsess a lot over titles, power, fame or money. What are those worth compared to a symbol or legacy like this?

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*Originally published on [Ram](https://paragraph.com/@ram008/stepping-into-history-to-row-to-the-future)*