Over the billions of lives that have been lived in recorded history, few get to be famous or infamous. Outside of the gilded cloisters of wealth or power, ordinary people have lived equally heroic or awful lives. It's just that no-one, aside from members of their own village or community, ever got to notice. And if they did, it was never deemed worthy of recording.

Occasionally anomalies will show up that reveal a clue into the circumstances of the life of an average person, such as the bog-preserved bodies of Tollund Man and Elling Woman, who may have been the victims of human sacrifice. And there are details now and then about this or that felon duly noted in local records. But by and large, the masses are silent. No-one was interested.

That is, of course, until the capacity to keep records became democratized by a flood of technological innovation. Future historians might be amazed at the sudden appearance of every face in a photograph, reproduced over and over again. A pop artist of the 20th Century once noted that fame would now be available to everyone for at least 15 minutes, which, I suppose, might beat never at all. The intersection of the new technologies with the penchant for hyper navel-gazing finds perfect expression in the proliferation of pictures and the accompanying brief adulation.

We live in abundant times, yet so much is eminently forgettable.