Calculating my “Moment of Oblivion.”

They say you aren’t totally dead until your name is spoken for the last time.

For some it will take longer than others. Much, much longer. I can’t imagine we’ll stop saying Julius Caesar’s name anytime soon. He did pay a high price of admission into Club Immortality, though, what with all those knife wounds in the back.

Or Genghis Khan. Especially when he was such a prolific baby daddy that even today 1 in 200 men in the former Mongol Empire share a common male ancestor — which was almost certainly him. Guy must have had a hell of a Tinder profile.

Adolf Hitler will be hanging around for a bit. History is filled with noteworthy murderers. In fact, that seems to be your best bet for a ticket into the remembrance afterlife. We won’t soon forget Joseph Stalin or Mao Zedong either.

Most of your prominent dictators, kings, barbarians, and major leaders down through history, good or evil, beloved or reviled, will likely live on in the collective consciousness. Ozymandias’ statue may have crumbled in the desert, but hey, we’re still talking about him, aren’t we?

After that, the list starts to really narrow. It’s mainly inventors and scientists like Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein. Influential artists and thinkers like Shakespeare, Socrates, or Leonardo da Vinci. Explorers such as Christopher Columbus or Neil Armstrong. Religious figures like Jesus Christ or Muhammad. Then a smattering of other human highlights. Your Typhoid Marys (Mary Mallon), Rube Goldbergs, and Roland the Farters.

Yes, Roland the Farter was a real person, and apparently, he was gastronomically quite skilled.

Sadly, I don’t think many Medium writers will make the recall cut past even 100 years from now, except maybe Barack Obama and other big names who happen to have accounts here. Sure, some server in a cave somewhere will probably have all of us stored away. But how desperate will those of 2124 be to read through hot takes from the 2020s? How many bestselling books or films do you know of from the 1920s? I can think of one off the top of my head — The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

It’s a sobering thought experiment calculating your “moment of oblivion.” Mine is probably around the year 2135. I was born in 1982. The average male life span in the United States is 80. I’m currently childless. If I were to have two children in the next ten years, my kids might be in their 30s by the time I die.

Everyone remembers their parents and talks often about them. So, at the least, I’d be remembered by my own kids until they pass away, possibly sometime early next century.

If my kids have children of their own, my grandkids would certainly remember me, assuming I live long enough to get to know them. Everyone loves their grandparents. If my future grandkids are born while my kids are in their late 20s or early 30s, they would live until around 2135.

After that, it starts to get real murky. Very few people ever know their great grandparents personally. Often you just know their name and some basic biographical information. Maybe a few family members have stories about them. I have no idea who my great great grandparents even are.

So, that’s it then. 2135. My Moment of Oblivion.

I could improve on my date with nothingness by living longer. Maybe I add ten more years then. Or I could have more kids than just two. Working against me there is the fact that I’m starting late. But if I were to live to my 90s and have five kids, and my kids have a bunch of kids, then perhaps I could stretch my remembered self to the mid-2100s. I’d have to be a real prodigious procreater like Genghis Khan to make it past the next century via genetic legacy alone.

If I don’t have any kids, then I’d be reliant on my nieces and nephews to remember their favorite uncle. That would get me no farther past sometime early next century. Aunts and uncles are rarely remembered past one generation.

Aside from being remembered by family, I’m left with having to do something extraordinary to make a big enough impact. I’m not a king, scientist, or explorer. I’m just a writer. Even if I were to write a huge bestselling book — like the next Jaws or Gone Girl — that probably only buys me notoriety for a few decades. The only two authors living today that I could see still being remembered in 100+ years solely due to their writing and not counting their offspring are Stephen King and J. K. Rowling. I don’t see myself getting that lucky.

Of course, if I were to somehow manage to kill millions of people, that’d be sure to keep me in everyone’s thoughts for centuries to come. But I’d have to really raise the bar there. I’m competing with some heavy hitters. Hitler killed around 17 million. Stalin whacked 23 million. Mao had a whopping 49–78 million extinguished.

How many would I need to kill to ensure I stick around forever? 80 million? 100 million? I think I’d better shoot for 100 million just to be sure. That’s a nice round number.

No, I think I’m okay with 2135 being my final goodbye year. That’s still 153 years of being thought about and talked about. Not a bad run for an average person.

When do you think your Moment of Oblivion will be?