As I was walking our dog by the creek today, half the split trunk of a large willow had cracked completely off and lay across the path. This happens over time where the weight becomes too high and the pressure pulling it down is too much for the strength of the trunk. During the winter it was frozen solid and as it thaws, it is weakened and crack. By the afternoon, I saw from the window that someone from the council was already cutting it up, but I couldn't see if they were going to take the whole tree. I don't know why, but I always find it sad when trees are removed, especially old trees, even though this is Finland and there are plenty of trees.
Everything falls eventually.
Nothing is too big to fail.
Whether it be a government, a nation, a planet, star or universe. Eventually, everything will cease to be, or change so much that it is unrecognisable from what it once was, like a sun collapsing in on itself to become a blackhole. All civilisations, all empires, all of human history is filled with collapse after collapse, and while we are still here as a species, how we look as a society is very different. It might be better in some ways, it might be worse in others, yet it continues for now. Eventually though, we too will cease to exist.
When I look at what is going on today in the timeline of our species, I don't see it as a golden time that we will collectively look back upon with grace. Much like the cars of today, very few of them are destined to be classics, because the art of life is gone, replaced by the desire for money. Life today is mass produced, looking to create efficiencies of scale and maximise profit by decreasing quality and longevity.
Life isn't built to last.
Not just today, but ever. Yet, instead of seeing our inevitable demise as a challenge for improvement within a finite timeline, it is instead a window for maximisation of largely materialistic pursuits. Collecting the most stuff is the goal, even though at least in this society, no hearse pulls a trailer of money behind it. So we collect this stuff as a legacy, a reminder of us carried forward into a future we will never see. Yet, while we focus on the financial value we will leave behind, we do not spend much time thinking about the values we upheld that will be carried forward. We don't think about what kind of conditions even our next generation will live with, let alone two or three down the track.
My daughter asked me today whether my grandad was a good person, and the little I remember of him as a person, yes he was. But, I don't know much of his life outside of a few stories heard from family, little about his youth, or the struggles he had as a young adult between world wars, or the challenges both internal and external he faced welcoming my father into his family, at a time where white only policy for immigration was still in effect. A policy that many seemingly would like to return to now.
I don't want to be remembered for what I leave behind.
But I think we all want to be remembered for something, so I think that I would want to be remembered for the impact that I made going forward. Sure, there is the financial impact for my daughter that might improve her life, but is that enough? If she ever is blessed enough to have children and they ask about what kind of person I was, what do I want her to be able to say?
I will be gone, so it doesn't matter?
But I think it does.
Because I believe we shouldn't be living our lives for ourselves, but as a small part of a whole that we aim to improve together. Improve, even if never seeing the fruits of labour, or the sown seeds reaped. And I think working for toward a better future isn't a reduction of the present life, but rather an expansion of it, an improvement of the life we have. It gives meaning and direction, but also a list of tasks and ways to behave right now. And it isn't a solitary life, it is one filled with interaction, collaboration, that also drives personal growth and expands potential.
But I think that what we have done is reduced our lives down to a simple metric that all we have to do is make it through for ourselves. And we create all kinds of strategies and excuses to explain why we couldn't be better yet, did we even try?
Everything comes to an end, but I sometimes wonder how many of us actually start living? Perhaps instead of using this brief amount of time we have alive to do something useful, we flit it away on nothing of consequence, rewriting our personal history to create a narrative that we did the best we could with what we had - omitting all the others who had less, and did more.
We all fall down.
Unless we never stand up.
Taraz
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