Time

I can live through most goodbyes and I even enjoy stories where things do not end perfectly. (I prefer them most days actually.)But I hate watching things wear out. Beautiful buildings, favorite clothes, old art...I hate how beauty never seems to endure. Time is relentless and it races on at a breath taking rate.

I have caught myself searching, in every new place I go, for some sign that wherever I have arrived is outside of the weight and wear of time. I want so badly for the beauty to endure. I think this is what is meant when it is said that God has written eternity on the hearts of men. Outside of that explanation, the human race makes no sense. We want to hang onto so many things but we have never been told that anything will last. There is no evidence of anything that has lasted forever...but we have an understanding that there is such a thing as 'forever'. At least, we have a word for it.

I do not know what this means for my plan to find out what it means to be human. It looks like it means that we are doomed to long for what we do not know...even as we fear the unknown above all else. We are delicate, fragile, and temporary but we long for strength and immortality. And while we are so temporary, we are capable of so much. The strength of the human spirit is unmatched. There is an undeniable will to live even when there does not seem to be reason to. For me, this leads past wonder and makes me believe in the immortality of the human soul. Where else did this idea come from? Why can we talk about a forever none of us have ever known? Why do we look to eternity? Are we really so lost in delusions of hope? Maybe. But if the hope is real, it changes everything.