Nothing Lasts Forever

I've been thinking about the inevitable decay. Of crumbling, ancient civilisations, and all the people across time who must have been famous and then forgotten. Maybe there was a famous dinosaur that every other dinosaur knew about. Maybe there was a Justin Bieber dinosaur. And then of course there's space and all its vastness. Its black holes and crater impacts. Destruction is everywhere, and it's much bigger than us.

I started thinking about this in response to the thought of failing digital appliances, and floods, and the fact that dust is unavoidable, age is unavoidable, and loss is unavoidable. We rely on so many things. Photos and trinkets attached to treasured memories, computers to connect us to stuff, phones to text our friends endless sheep emojis. Things are important to us to the point that it can cause immense grief when something breaks or gets lost.

I find it very helpful to distance myself from that sense of need as much as possible. I am still human, and I care about my things, but I try to keep in mind that my memories and feelings are not intrinsically dependent on things. My creativity is not dependent on having a computer or a camera, or even a notebook. My memories won't just go away when I don't have photos of a moment. I will still be myself and I will still be just as able should I lose something important to me, or something I use a lot. I think it helps me to approach items I own with an expectation of eventual degradation. That way I'm prepared for those things when they happen.

It's soothing to me to accept the fate of objects, and it helps me accept the insignificance of life and time, too, which is oddly comforting to me. Nothing lasts forever. That's fine. I'm cool with it.