Names

There’s a story my someone I know tells about the origins of his surname. The problem is he is a masterful storyteller. A problem for me, not for him. And not really a problem for me so much as a complaint.

Annoyingly, he is a masterful storyteller without trying. I do not think it is age, for he acts younger than me most days. Nor am I sure it’s the circumstances of his youth - there are plenty in his generation who can barely hold a conversation let alone tell a story. Whatever magic has given him the gift of gab outside of the Emerald Isles is something I am both blind to and covet desperately.

To continue the tangent for just a moment longer, it feels as though something about it is genetic. It isn’t. I know it isn’t. There’s nothing that makes sense about that. But his daughter has the gift as well. Stories come as naturally to her as breathing. For her it manifests as comedy, jokes, jibes, and a lot of cursing. A lot. Maybe too much? But it’s funny.

But back to this crust sea dog. Like most last names, his has a real-life origin. Smith. Weaver. Butt-fucker. Somewhere in the history of the family the moniker was descriptive rather than simply an assignation. His, as I’m told, means silver-smith. Somehow. Somewhere. And in some language.

The story goes something like this. Not like this exactly because I’m not only relying on memory but also I am without the ability to tell this story well. Back in the day one of his ancestors had an unfortunate run of luck, and was cast out of some place. What place? I don’t remember. But they were forced abroad or adrift and eventually had a child who would go to a king in Greenland (maybe - I’m not sure) and prove their worth and the worth of their family and lineage through crafting silver. Thus the name, which I shall not reveal here for want of doxxing, was actually bestowed upon them by the king.

What is the point of all of this story and preamble without facts or coherency? It’s not that he is a great man. Or that his daughter is funny. Or that last names have some sort of root in the history of the family. It’s that there was an ancestor whose only place in history is as a counterpart to the actual story. Who is the negative, the non-named, the creator of the creator of the hero/legacy/known entity.

How awful if ghosts were real and you were simply known as “that one guy who was so bad at his job he got kicked out of the entire country?”

And yet. Yet. That not only happens, it is the fate of many people. To become the sub-ordinate clause in the sentence of history. To become nameless context. To become not an object lesson, but an object itself. Less than a person.

Only time will tell. And as ghosts are not real the import of this fact is up for debate: does one actually care what  generations hence will remember or regard about your life? We are all sparks of stardust and to that we shall return, so what does one care of the memory? Of the fact that the universe is indifferent in every way possible?

No. What you should care about is that telling wonderful stories. And you should treasure that fact. Who cares about the other ones.