Making your mark isn't the point
You don’t write the history books, so don’t waste your time making Horcruxes
“Which event do you want to do? I think it’s asking a lot for you to do both.”
I sat in a small, windowless box next to one of my parents and across from one of my coaches. I can’t recall if I was in my suit, if I was wet, or if I had arrived before or after practice. My brain determined those details didn’t matter and dumped them years ago. (For whatever reason, I do recall that my upholstered chair had plastic arms. You know the kind — they adorn waiting rooms everywhere).
Sitting in the coaches’ office, I thought for a minute and responded, “Well, which one do you think I have a better shot of breaking the record? And which record do you think will last longer?”
My coach shook his head. “That shouldn’t matter.”
His tone, combined with the look on his face, swelled the feeling I had in my gut before I opened my mouth. It reminded me of when another coach looked down at me flat on my ass on the deck after I’d slipped in front of everyone. I knew I shouldn’t have been running on the deck, just as I knew securing my name’s place on the record board wasn’t the point.
But even ten-year-old me wanted to make her mark and see it last.
So did Tom Riddle, and by all accounts,1 he succeeded. As one of the most powerful wizards to ever live, he accomplished great things (“terrible, but great”) and left an indelible mark on people and history.
His achievements took time and focus. Tom Riddle grew up an orphan with an innate desire to set himself apart from others, preferably by placing himself above them. He resented his Muggle father, with whom he never had a relationship, as well as his witch mother for loving a Muggle — and then for succumbing to death and leaving him alone.
Her passing, combined with his massive ego, triggered a deep-seated fear of death, which he considered a human weakness that wizards could and should overcome. He thus considered Muggles less than, and being a direct descendant of the granddaddy of blood purity did nothing to change his mind. He ultimately cast off his too-common, too-Muggle, too-human name for one that better fit the image he wanted to project: I am Lord Voldemort.
Yet even magic provides few roads to immortality. The ones available lead to an existence few would choose. But the cost didn’t matter; Voldemort chose to lessen his chances of physical death by creating Horcruxes.
For those of you here for the metaphor without the benefit of Harry Potter lore in your metal catalog, a Horcrux is an object that functions as the receptacle of part of one's soul, which gets split by committing murder. If at least one Horcrux (and, by extension, one part of the wizard's soul) remains intact, the wizard is considered immortal.
Voldemort split his soul into eight pieces: seven resided in Horcruxes, and the eighth remained in his body. While he returned for one encore performance, he didn’t make a second. Harry Potter and his allies destroy the remaining Horcruxes and kill Voldemort (again), ending his stranglehold on the wizarding world and his quest to avoid physical death.
When Harry casts the final spell in their duel, Voldemort disintegrates into pieces of ash. Nothing of him remains.
Except perhaps his name.
“Do you know who invented dynamite?”
Painkiller tells the story of the Sackler family.2 Whatever else they might be, they’re now known as the family behind Oxycontin, a drug that eliminated pain while simultaneously wreaking havoc for countless people now addicted, grieving, or dead.
Arthur Sackler was the brain of the family. Lacking the magic to even consider avoiding physical death, Arthur pursued Voldemort’s consolation prize to achieve his immortality: legacy.3
He was inspired by Alfred Nobel who — as the answer to my earlier question — invented dynamite and made more money than he knew what to do with. Most of us don’t carry the factoid about the creator of dynamite up our sleeve, but we all know the Nobel Peace Prize.
Arthur realized that with the right pill, he would have a customer for life, which better positioned him to achieve his financial goals than being a psychiatrist. So he purchased a drug company and a medical advertising agency. He hit the jackpot with Vallium, which made him more money than he knew what to do with.
But instead of creating one Horcrux, Arthur created many.
He invested in the arts, museums, and other causes that function as the receptacle of part of his story because they bear his name. When his body was inevitably destroyed, his name lived on.
And then he ran afoul of Voldemort’s undoing:4 other people.
Names are funny things. They can wield a lot of power.5 They can also incite fits of giggles.6
Our names define us despite the fact that we don’t choose them for ourselves (Voldemort’s rebranding an exception). When we make our mark on history, it’s our name we want to see preserved, etched into buildings, or repeated by those still living. It’s what keeps us alive.
While our first name belongs to us alone (generally, not counting all you juniors out there), our last name reveals the family to which we belong. The actions of those who came before us and the actions of those who come after us affect how people understand us — whether we like it or not.
Keenly aware of this fact, Tom killed his family and changed his name. Arthur, however, had to contend with his family because his version of immortality depended on them.
Arthur cared little about the moral cost of accumulating mass financial resources; he’d have the capital to write his page in history as he saw fit, which would erase the versions that came before it. The story he concocted didn’t allow him to avoid living a cursed life, but it got him one step closer to being perceived as a god.
Arthur’s god-like status wouldn’t find roots in being unkillable or rising from the almost-dead. His name — his family name — and the story it came to represent would be all that remained once he died. Members of his family would be the ones to either maintain its status or destroy it.
They could maintain the status quo. Or someone could come along with a bigger check and get the Sackler name erased from the buildings that kept it alive. Or perhaps more likely, someone in the family could do something damaging enough that they undermine the power of the Horcruxes he created, putting his purified immortality in jeopardy.
Arthur was smart. He knew his legacy depended on his family following his doctrine and not fucking up too badly. He left such a deep impression on his nephew, Richard, that Arthur’s ghost appears as a constant companion throughout the series. Richard repeats his uncle’s mantras, follows his rituals, and seeks his guidance (a religion of one, but a religion nonetheless).
Yet the series ends with Arthur’s ghost assaulting Richard for destroying his legacy.
Despite all his power and sway, he failed.
Or shall I say, his ego failed.
Tom Riddle provides a fantastic example of someone committed to living forever. Arthur provides a less fantastic but still larger-than-life example of someone committed to paying for their mark on history to secure a version of immortality.
And then there’s the rest of us.
Death is scary. Not the act of dying but the reality of not existing. When I think about not existing, I feel a mix of panic and grief. I think that’s reasonable. I’m only human after all.
But humans with egos think they can play god. Whether we use magic or do whatever the guy trying to use herbs to live forever is doing, engineer a digitized self (which sounds more like being a mutilated soul trapped in purgatory7 than immortality), or purchase a self-authored page in the annals of humanity, we’re rooting our actions in the fear of not existing or the arrogance of our inflated self-importance. Or both.
Speaking for myself, leaving a mark used to serve as an indicator of success. It would validate that my work had made a significant impact. And if I were to be totally honest, I wanted to leave a mark because it meant the world would not forget me.
But leaving a mark isn’t the right focus. I knew it intuitively at ten but it took another couple decades for it to sink in. First, the infamous and the famous go in the same history book — and sadly, we tend to remember the serial killer, not the victim. Participating in this game encourages a the-ends-justify-the-means mindset when in reality, living a good life is all about the means.
Second, while striving to do something significant with your life is not inherently bad, when you’re doing whatever you’re doing for your own self-immortalization, you’ve made it about you, not whoever you’re trying to help. It’s a slippery slope from there to a self-indulgent life.
And lastly, there’s an essential humbling that comes with recognizing that even if we did something truly fantastic, we don’t control how we’re remembered. That lies in the hands of others.
We can transmit knowledge, but we don’t control how others understand or apply it. We can devote our lives to pursuing solutions that make the world better, but we don’t control how they’ll play out. We can pass on our genes to our children, but we can’t control how they appear.8 We can even choose to help others, but we don’t control how they express their gratitude, if they express it at all.
For clarity, I don’t mean to suggest that you shouldn’t care about your reputation or that you shouldn’t want to leave something valuable behind. I mean to say that if you're only doing what you’re doing because you think it will ensure you're Too Big to Forget, that's not the right reason to do it.
If I could talk to ten-year-old me in her white silicone cap, I would tell her the reason to pick an event is because you enjoy doing it. The reason to swim ‘til you puke’9 is to see how far you can go. Records give you something to strive for, and if you do by chance break one, don’t hope that it stays there forever; hope that some other girl comes along and breaks it because that raises the bar for all of us.
While I can’t control how or if I appear in any history books, I can control my actions. I can choose what actions get my time. I can give my best every day. I can treat people with care. I can strive to both obtain value and deliver value to others.
I will make a mark on the world — even if my name isn’t on it.
I did not read the books. My observations are based on the films and some Googling. Judge if ye must.
I take no stance on how accurately this series portrays Perdue Pharma, the Sackler family, or Oxycontin. I’m using the series as an illustrative example.
The first entry for “legacy” in the Merriam-Webster dictionary is “a gift by will, especially of money or other personal property.” I include this footnote because a) I was surprised this was the first definition and made me realize all the financial institutions talking about legacy aren’t trying to rebrand themselves; they’re being literal and b) because when people say they want to leave a legacy, they’re often saying they want to be written into the history books. Arthur used his money to get himself into the history books.
According to the internet, Tom made choices based on what he could do himself without relying on others. Unfortunately for him, you can’t achieve world domination in an empty room.
Hermione rightly points out that fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself. Artists, pro wrestlers, or companies who change their names to something that fits the story they want to tell understand what’s in a name.
Should I have children, my plan is for them to take the last name least likely to land them a kick-me sign on their back.
Voldemort’s mutilated soul was trapped in limbo for eternity. He lost big time, in my opinion.
I believe we’re working on this, but I’ve yet to read about anyone using CRISPR to edit the genes of their children as a ploy to obtain immortality for themselves. But I may be reading the wrong things or not using my imagination.
Known also as S.T.U.P. (Yes, that is the acronym the coach shouted during practice).