It was a beautiful, early summer afternoon in Washington, DC. As the sun positioned itself across the Potomac River, I climbed the stairs of the Lincoln Memorial.
By this hour, the steps were blanketed in shade. So, as I traversed them, I felt as if I was ascending into a darkened cave.
But that feeling evaporated once I reached the top and I turned around. What I saw took my breath away.
No, it wasn’t the view itself that had this effect on me.
The sights of the National Mall sprawled out in front of me — the reflecting pool bathed in sunlight, with the Washington Monument towering behind it — were certainly picturesque.
But I had seen this vista before.
I’d seen it in prior visits to our nation’s capital. I’d seen it in movie scenes. And I’d seen it in black and white pictures from 1963.
Yes, the March on Washington had culminated in this spot. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous I Have a Dream speech from these steps. And if pictures are prophecy, the view hadn’t changed one bit since then.
That was what got to me. The knowledge that while so much can change in an instant, some things can stay the same for decades.
Some things are just built to last.
What makes something timeless? What gives it staying power?
It’s a question countless people have tried to answer through the years.
We live in an environment of constant flux. Our status quo is a ride on a spinning sphere orbiting a ball of fire — with nary a seat belt to be found.
To some extent, we lean into this reality. Over the centuries, we’ve evolved, we’ve innovated, and we’ve rebuilt after disaster.
Yet, we yearn for constants. We crave the comfort of the familiar. We rely on a beacon — an enduring single point of reference.
With this utopia all too often lacking, we seek to create it. We strive to add constructs that transcend generations.
We stake our value on our legacy. We pour our effort into endurance. And we hope against hope that our name and accomplishments will not be forgotten by those who come after us.
It’s a valiant quest. But it’s one that’s nearly impossible to pull off.
For when we seek to create something that’s built to last, we fight against the forces of the future. With no way to know what the future will bring, we are effectively left to guess.
We bet against the unimaginable whittling our creations away. And we hold our breath.
I’m writing this article six years after the launch of Words of the West.
This forum has grown immensely over that time. What began as a singular ode to my imperfection has transformed into a collection of thoughts, opinions, and reflections. There are more than 300 of those on Words of the West now, with a new article added each week.
Putting these perspectives into writing is certainly a passion of mine. But ensuring they’re up to standard, week in and week out, has proven to be a great challenge.
I embrace this challenge by tackling it head-on. Each week, as I prepare to draft a new article, I ask myself one question: Is this idea built to last?
The premise of this query is ridiculous. The world has changed dramatically in six years, and I’ve evolved greatly as well. My flaws and knowledge gaps are as present now as they were at the start.
After all these strides and half-steps, I can’t possibly know what might be built to last — let alone judge my ideas against it?
And yet, I stick with this litmus test. For it reinforces the aspirations of my work.
I want my ideas to endure. I want my thoughts to inspire. I want my prose to assist people that I may never have the honor to meet.
I have no doubt this process has made my writing better. Even as its impact becomes harder than ever to gauge.
Seismic events have rocked our world in the past half-decade or so. And in their wake have come candid re-evaluations of so much of what we once took for granted.
Statues have come down. Holidays have been renamed. And the literary canon has been reshuffled.
Regardless of your opinion of these changes, they’ve surely changed the calculus of what’s built to last. They’ve reminded us that our legacy is always on trial; there is no statute of limitations.
I believe that the perspectives I share here are moral, proper, and on the right side of history. But will they still be that way years from now? That’s anyone’s guess.
Despite the odds, there are certainly some staples of our society that are built to last.
Coca-Cola continues to be a preeminent soda, both locally and globally. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer remains a quintessentially American novel. And that view from the Lincoln Memorial is as pristine now as it was half a century ago.
What’s the recipe for this success? It’s equal parts circumstance, shrewdness, and luck.
The United States Government happens to operate the National Mall. And with the National Park Service eternally loathe to change its look, the view from the Lincoln Memorial is unlikely to change anytime soon.
Other sodas have won the hearts of Americans. But few have mastered the arts of marketing and international expansion the way Coca-Cola has.
And The Adventures of Tom Sawyer managed to paint a picture of frontier American life without too many of the missteps that have felled other works of its era.
Time and again, we try and emulate these successes. We attempt to rekindle their glory, to remaster their endurance. And time and again, we fail.
Perhaps we’re approaching this task all wrong.
Perhaps we need to focus on the journey, not the destination. Perhaps we need to lean into the standard we seek to set, rather than the results we hope to influence.
Such a strategy recenters the conversation. It puts control in our hands.
If we do what seems moral and right, if we act in a way that truly allows us to hold our head high, that’s enough.
No need to fret about what comes in the centuries after we’re gone. For the present, we’ve authored something built to last.