Posterity

I saw a baby bird and a mama bird chirping in a nest this week. Being somewhat of a philosopher at heart, I started thinking about how  the  baby bird has the mother’s DNA  pursing through its little veins. Someday that little bird will grow up and have babies herself. There will be many birds from this one bird and a long chain of posterity will have the genetic memories of that first mother bird. It was all theoretical and very interesting to think  about until it suddenly got very personal.

If your DNA dies with you, who is your posterity?

You don’t have one. The definition of posterity is all the descendants of one person. I probably won’t have children. Most days I’m okay with the body I have. I can attend a friend’s baby shower and not feel that God has let me down.  I still felt a little sad though when I considered that there are no baby birds who look like me. Then I remembered the second definition of the word posterity.

Posterity is the succeeding future generations collectively. 

So, in my own philosophical way,  I guess the entire succeeding or future generations on Planet Earth could collectively be my posterity.  I better start doing something to make the world a better place to live.  I don’t want to let the posterity down.