The Muses, and their mother, Memory, are all women, as are the Three Graces. For a man to be inspired is for him to hear voices, his alienated selves, from whom he takes dictation. Those works he composes humbly, just writing down what he is told, are said to be his most characteristic utterance. Perhaps women find their muse is male, maybe Hermes? Philanthropy too is a daughter of memory, "strategic" and "inspired," a kind of Hermaphrodite, part hard, part soft, part expressive, part rigorous, the milk of human kindness joined with the overbearing desire to remake the world. Is Philanthropy, then, a Daughter of Memory? Well, what else is Legacy?
"How do you want to be remembered?" we ask clients. But we might better ask, "Whom does your work honor, what tradition or heritage does your gift keep alive?" As we forget, so will we be forgotten.
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