Time is a constant relative. It passes the same for each who experiences it, one second per second into the future--just a long line that vanishes into the mists of pseudo infinity. Human, plant, animal. We all have similar life spans when you step back far enough, but compare us to what we call inanimate. Dead matter to stone, stone to sand, sand to stone once again. There are few differences in the life cycles of the inanimate and the animate. It’s our perspective that’s limited. Earth itself has a life cycle of millions and billions of years, just as with our star.
To comprehend the sheer scale of their lifetimes is truly impossible for our limited perspective on reality. For how could an ant look up at a mountain and know just how high it really is when it doesn’t know what a mountain even is? We’re the ant; we can guess what it might feel like to stand upon that impossible mountain. But we will never know for sure.
Just as our lives grow bright, plateau, then fade with the years, so does everything around us. Stone, mountains, Earth, the stars above. We’re all part of the greater whole, driven forward along that line of time at one second per second. Seconds mean more to us that have shorter time, are more noticeable, but seconds are no less important for stars. Time is time for all, none are immune.
Countless points of light paint our sky. Each a distant star, each somewhere on that path of time. Some are dead, gone and burned out or exploded in glory. We’re seeing the history of our universe every time we look up. An entire tapestry of the past stretches out before our very eyes; it’s only because one second per second passes that we even know what we’re looking at.
For those stars that are already dead and we haven’t witnessed it yet: I play the blues.
For those stars that are far closer, maybe just around the street corner or your neighbor across the street: I play the blues.
Not because I’m sad that things--inanimate and animate--must come to an end, but because there’s a strange comradery in that moment, the moment that transcends your boundaries and you can catch the merest glimpse of the universe--the impossible mountain--towering above and grasp the tiniest part of it. It’s then the mists break, infinity beckons beyond.
I play the blues for the dying not because it’s sad, but because it’s the one thing that brings everything together regardless of creed or scope. It’s a celebration.
One second per second, forevermore.
Styles Yugen, signing off.
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