Something I never fully appreciated when I was younger was how much of the past completely disappears. It was doing it all along, of course, but my window of personal acquaintance with time was short enough that most of the things I was aware of were still within their own window of currency, and the rest of what I knew about were the Big Things of the past that were important enough to linger in our cultural memory.
Now, though, I’ve lived long enough that I remember an awful lot of things, and people, and events, that most people now alive have never even been aware of — and I’m not talking about trivialities here, but rather about things that were prominent enough in their day to be common knowledge, front-page news, and household names. I have thousands of books, many of which “mattered” in their day, but are now out of print and forgotten, and before long will never be remembered at all.
I realize, of course, that I’m not exactly the first person all of this has occurred to! (And I’ve written about this sort of thing before, for example here and here.) But this year — in which, among other memento mori, I turned seventy, and lost my beloved younger brother and a dear old friend — has brought home the oceanic fact of impermanence in away that the mere reflections of youth, however serious, never could. It’s what made it, suddenly, so difficult to keep writing every day about the churning froth of worldly events.
I’ve come around a little, lately — life may just be a flickering candle, but while we’re here, we’re all here together, and it’s all real enough as it’s happening to matter very much nevertheless, and to be worth paying attention to. But a great deal really isn’t worth paying all that much attention to, and it’s often that which deserves the least attention that gets the most.
A good part of wisdom is knowing the difference — and remembering that, especially as our shadows lengthen, much of the most important work that remains is within us, near to hand, or above.