When I was in high school, a friend of mine used to say this thing whenever he did something stupid that he might have regretted, or was considering doing something like that. He asked the question, "What'll it all mean a hundred years from now?" Of course it was hypothetical, and being young and immortal, we could afford to laugh at it. No one at the time ever had the presence of mind to ask what it might mean two or three days hence. That would have been helpful.
Recently, I ran across this saying: "Remember, a hundred years from now--all new people" which I'm taking a little more seriously. In fact, it's kind of been haunting me. All new people . . . a simple, irrefutable fact that sums up all of existence, finally answering the question, what will it all mean a hundred years from now?
It means whatever you think it means. The future exists only in our minds, and only right now.
I think about this too. Soon everyone alive now will be dead. There are billions of people who have lived and died already. Almost nothing any of them did, said, hoped, dreamed, etc. mattered at all. Everything extinguished like a match in the rain. But there is a moment for everyone that is the best, the brightest, however small and brief. Have I had mine already? I don’t know. It makes me think that every life is a tiny recapitulation of the whole universe, which also will ultimately die out…
ReplyDelete