Ayatollah Motahari's existential phrase! (reposted from a draft I wrote during summer)

شهید مطهری: «مپندارید که شهدا رفته اند و ما مانده ایم بلکه آنها مانده اند و گذر زمان ما را با خود برده است.»

The quote above is from one of the most renowned religious scholars and intellectuals of the Iran. His views are closer to hardliners than to others but nevertheless his deep understanding of the religion is praised by advocates and opponents alike. The phrase above is about martyrdom. It means something around the lines of:

"Never assume that our martyrs are gone and forgotten, and we are left behind. It is them who are left behind [in history] and us that are gone and forgotten in the passing of time."

There's something so pleasantly existential about this...funny I should notice it now...

I was just at a party, and things seemed so banal to me...until I had conversation outside of the crowd with a fellow I knew. We were conversing over jobs and how they become routine and repetitive no matter how exciting they seem when you start...and how they constrain you (if not stop you) from following up on what you used to dream about through short-term incentives - I call them cookies - like paid education and funny promotions...and at one point I told him: "All this is bullshit...and you and I put up with it, because we want that shirt [he was wearing Lacoste], or a nice car, or that house." So more time passed and I never even stepped into the party...just chit chatted to people who were to warm and came out to get some fresh air...

Now, I come home, and check the news, and someone's quoting this from the very conservative ayatollah...and I think about what I used to think before... I am going to be forgotten in the passage of time, do I live a life worth being remembered? or even worth being repeated? In most cases probably not! Dam that conclusion does not help my grim mood at all!