Why We Die: A Very Short Book Review

I recently read "Why We Die" by Venki Ramakrishnan, recipient of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. This book on the science of living longer was outside of my usual diet of historical fiction, novels, armchair travel, and memoirs but a trusted friend recommended it so off to my local bookstore I went. While I did learn some interesting tidbits such as that, in general, the larger the animal, the longer its natural life span, the content went too far into the weeds of molecular biology for me to hang on every word.

Dr. Ramakrishnan does point out one thing that resonated with me in my professional life: humans are the only living beings concerned with leaving a legacy. That 190-year-old bowhead whale off the coast of Norway isn’t thinking about it. The lovely David Austin rose bush in your garden isn’t either. Research suggests that leaving a legacy helps people make sense of the end of life; it’s a preservation technique. A legacy can also be means of control; people want to leave legacies to influence how they are perceived after they have passed.

Is leaving a legacy important to you? If so, why?