I read of the recent discovery of a Bronze Age battlefield in northeastern Germany, in a narrow valley of the Tollense River. Meeting at the site of an ancient bridge, hundreds or even thousands of men fought and killed one another with weapons of the day. Afterwards, the bones of the dead, of men as well as horses, were claimed by the earth…water, sediment, peat. Only a hundred miles or so northeast of Berlin, neither the men nor the battle remained in the modern psyche. Both they and their story, recorded only in the oral traditions of the day, had disappeared.

The article rekindled my consideration of significance. Not existential, a different question. I’m thinking of our physical significance…on earth, within societies, in families, with friends and enemies and total unknowns. What remains of us individually once we check out, once those who remember us are gone, the headstones and papers and all traces of our names vanished? What difference would it have made had we each never existed? With succeeding generations, even of our own offspring, our memory fades and splutters like candlelight until–in an undefinable instant–it is no more. What then?

And it doesn’t take long. An historian I admire poses the question thusly: “How many generations of our grandparents can we as individuals name?” The answer? For most, not more than one or two. The more recent may exist within a collective family memory, but those recalled change with each set of our children’s children. The more distant have faded to namelessness.

The question for each of us is how to deal this. Some never confront it, quieting its persistent nagging with displacement activity or narcotics or metaphysical projection. But the more sentient give it voice, bring it out of the subconscious to deal with it. Whether we become conscious nihilists, or embrace the mystery, we create our own significance, realizing that the here and now is all we have. What we do with it is our responsibility.