Today I’ve been thinking about something I call a Random Renaissance Person. You’re welcome to think about this with me.
By that, I don’t mean a king or a famous artist. I mean an ordinary person. Someone who lived during the Renaissance whose name we will never know. A farmer. A laborer. A shop worker. Someone who woke up each morning, did their work, had relationships, worries, small joys, and disappointments. They were born. They lived. They probably fell in love, got sick, laughed, argued, and eventually died.
Try to picture them for a moment.
They had a life just as full and real as yours feels right now. Their days mattered deeply to them. What they thought, feared, and hoped for felt important. Their problems felt urgent. Their relationships felt meaningful. And yet—there is no record of them. No photograph. No journal. No trace that we can point to and say, this was them.
It’s not that they didn’t exist. It’s that their life left no lasting mark on the world as we now experience it.
Now look around your own space, wherever you are. Your room. Your office. Your street. Is there anything in front of you that can be traced directly back to that person? Anything at all? Their struggles, victories, opinions, and personal story are completely gone. It’s as if they never lived.
This isn’t unique to people from the distant past.
You can see it walking through an antique store, flipping through boxes of old photographs. Wedding portraits. Graduation photos. Family gatherings. These moments clearly mattered to someone once. But now the people are unknown. Their stories are gone. Their significance has faded entirely.
We don’t like to think this will happen to us.
We assume our lives are different. More important. More remembered. We have people who love us. We have stories, opinions, accomplishments. Surely we won’t disappear in the same way.
But if we’re honest, we already know the pattern.
Bodies age. Possessions break or are discarded. Titles and roles change hands. Eventually, even the most carefully constructed identity dissolves. The things we spend so much time protecting—our image, our importance, our story—are far more fragile than we’d like to admit.
So the question isn’t morbid. It’s practical.
If everything we point to as “me” is temporary, what is it that remains when those things fall away?
When you’re not defined by your job, your history, your successes, or even your failures, what’s still here?
You don’t have to answer that right now. In fact, it may be better not to. Just notice the space the question opens. Notice that whatever is aware of this thought experiment—whatever is here before an answer appears—hasn’t come or gone in the same way everything else has.
The life of the Random Renaissance Person vanished completely. And yet, being itself did not.
That’s the part worth paying attention to.
Summary:
This article explores the fleeting nature of human existence by imagining an ordinary person from the Renaissance—someone who lived, worked, loved, and struggled, yet left no lasting trace. Just as their life has faded into obscurity, so too will our own personal histories eventually be forgotten. The article challenges the reader to consider whether our attachments to identity, possessions, and accomplishments are as meaningful as we believe. Ultimately, it questions whether something deeper and more permanent exists beyond the transient nature of life.
Main Points:
- The Impermanence of Individual Lives – Ordinary people from history, no matter their experiences, are often lost to time, just as we, too, will eventually be forgotten.
- The Illusion of Permanence – We cling to our identities and achievements, believing they define us, yet history shows that all material and personal legacies eventually fade.
- The Search for What Endures – The article questions whether something timeless exists beyond our temporary existence, challenging the reader to reflect on the nature of being.
Key Questions:
- How does the passage of time erase individual lives from history?
- Are our identities and achievements as significant as we believe?
- What, if anything, remains when all forms of life and memory fade?
- Is existence truly fleeting, or is there something deeper and enduring beyond time?
