Everything is impermanent.
The forest becomes an open field – a farm, then a housing tract. Over decades it falls into a state of disrepair, is redeveloped and reoccupied by new families. Look up and suddenly the skyline has changed. Twenty years in the city re-invented, we need a new house, a new stadium of entertainment. “You lived here once; I never knew. You graduated from there, when was that? I studied so hard, don’t you remember?”
Yesterday’s news is so quickly forgotten, wars and disasters, pandemics, economic booms and busts, elections, seasons of sports. That which is momentous today is delegated to anniversaries, where were you? Oh yes, I remember. Important work each day, every meeting and report and recommendation, every conversation. The recommendations are written over, our contributions placed aside. On to the next.
Natures seasons cycle and then fade, every leaf, every acorn is impermanent. Cold rain, spring fields of blue, hot sun, they all pass by as the year cycles through.
Our physical being grows, plateaus at 10,000 days of life, and slowly declines; we try not to acknowledge the changes until our speed slows and our shortens. Subtle reductions, sudden changes. A future version of our younger self reveals itself, impermanent.
Our school, our office, our house, a car, a shoe, a phone, a hat, a tooth, we leave them all behind. Former students and teachers bid farewell to shut Beechview school | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Contributions in career and home and family endure through the next generations. The work we assembled was built on past efforts, and supports future version 2.0 and beyond. The leaves feed the next generations, the acorns support those alive this year, they are sustained. My father passed long years ago, to most others his life events mostly forgotten, retained in our distant family memories, a spare digital imprint, but his impact on us remains, we carry on.
Friendships and relationships follow an arc of growth that bring us close. Many grow distant with time. Relationships change, though our true love endures.
Nothing is impermanent, nothing is fully lost but regenerates and carries forward through all of time. Energy is conserved.
