A butterfly just flew by and I'll never see it again.
I stopped my thoughts and witnessed as it flew into eternity.
Today we are very much attached to the illusion that time is only what our clocks show us, concepts developed and generally agreed upon that follow astral events for an accurate systematization of our society. However, this might be only one side of a much more complex phenomenon. In his famous theory of relativity, Einstein outlines that time conforms to space and its influenced by the factors that exist within that space. In contrast, in our internal psychological environment of boundless space, time becomes non-linear. This constantly affects how we interact with the outer, linear time.
The chronological illusion of permanence that one might fall into and naively start aspiring to immortality is one of the side effects that grew out of extended incubation in an artificial or virtual space. Prolonged open contact with a natural space always reminds us of the impermanence and transience of life, a fundamental characteristic of our living world. The passing of seasons, of flowers and creatures with a far shorter lifespan than ours but also of quaint interactions that unfold in just a moment. However, spending much time in artificial spaces, surrounded by lifeless things that hardly change makes us insensible to our own nature and pushes us to think that things are there forever. That state of postponement holds up until we are reminded that this is not so, after which we plunge into existential despair and countless buckets of ice cream.
A childish mentality of a person that never learned to let go of something that was never theirs to keep.
Nowadays there’s a lot of pitiful characters that pour vast resources in a futile pursuit of immortality. Here’s one that chugs all manner of foods, pills and beverages to stay forever young. There, another one is investing in technology to translate the contents of his mind in digital format, and the list just goes on into absurdity. Meanwhile life goes on by them unnoticed.
Although nothing new, the tendency where some start to see themselves above the natural order of things and starts foolishly aspiring to immortality is a deluded outpouring of a mind that has become trapped within itself in an artificial dreamy detachment and can no longer bare its own nature, let alone bare to be around reminders of a similar nature.
Probably one of the most compelling cases of this delusion found in the annals of history is that of the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, who, after amassing vast wealth and power, thought that he was somehow entitled to immortality, and in return he received a hasty demise by foolishly consuming mercury pills at the advice of his trusted counselor.
The truth is that, caught in all manner of dreams, we forgot how to live, how to grow old and how to die. A gross disrespect for life and other living things around us, always prioritising artificial dead things to strengthen our obsession with permanence. We want to be androids, we want to go to cyber-heaven stuck on a hard-drive somewhere, we want to be overlook by A.I. God that we can turn on-off to our liking, or in other words, we crave a dead, artificial existence.
A mind that is predisposed to life is not afraid of death, but doesn’t crave it either. The mind that developed an obsession with death, is afraid of death and always looks for it.
The temporary awareness of this fundamental truth of existence might fuel our anxieties, as everything we acquire in life stands to crumble. However, beyond our arrogant despair, there's a beauty to it all that urges us to be more present, patient and considerate with those around us and to be more engaged in genuinely living our life in the presence of life and not just waste away locked off somewhere in an artificial space.
The beauty of life is that it is temporary and fleeting, it’s here for a moment and nevermore. This fact presses an urgency to live and appreciate what it is given to us in that moment and not before, because it can just as easily be taken away at any time. A friend, a parent, a pet or someone you’ve never met is here today and gone tomorrow. This though alone drives me to look towards a persons qualities instead of nitpicking at their flaws, to at least try and be kind and enjoy their presence because before you know it, you’ll never get a chance to spend time in their company again.
Like anything else,
One day I’ll just fade away and maybe there’s gonna be someone, somewhere, that’s gonna say:
“Oh! But he was here just a minute ago.”
