<< Death

The inevitability of our death is one of the most difficult realities to come to terms with.

The prospect that everything we’ve ever achieved and created is futile in the face of time and memory is a terrifying prospect that easily exacerbates anything from religious beliefs to rampant nihilism. 

Carl Sagan expressed this brilliantly on Pale blue dot*: Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us,,,” ; it’s hard to have a much clearer prospect about our apparent insignificance in the galactic scale. But our minds, capable of dealing only with a limited amount of elements at any given time, chooses wisely to let us focus on much smaller things.

In a sense, those great men of our cultures: the conquerors, the inventors, the creators have decided to wage a war. They’ve decided to stare time and death right to the face and utter a challenge to its inevitability.

Death might not care, and infinity stares at us either neglecting our existence, or perhaps amused at our attempts to exceed this ultimate barrier. 

And so we’re all left to seek that which satisfies us most. Some will look for the ephemeral, something perhaps not lasting, unimportant even. A footnote in existence, maybe building the foundations for some other descendent more up to the task.

Some others will take on the fight: try to have a broader impact, by means of invention or letters achieve that immortality that comes by the mouth of others. They will make subjects of history books, elements in story lessons; and when finally time blurrys the line of their existence and myth, they shall turn into the new legends of old. Not unlike those we listen to even today.

What we choose to do with our borrowed time is up to each one of us. Both sow and harvest are just rewards in its time for that which we choose to do.

Ultimately, the book of Ecclesiastes might be right in its claim on the vanity of it all:

No one remembers the former generations, and even those yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow them. (Ecclesiastes 1:11)

Notes:

1. The full extract to this wonderful quote can be found here: https://www.planetary.org/worlds/pale-blue-dot