Permanence

What is really permanent? Much of the course of our lives is made up of events whose meaning and relevance exists in our minds. It’s as if today has forgotten about yesterday and the thousands of yesterdays before unless they happen to be brought up in a topic of discussion amongst friends or family.

The years of our youth, the college years, and our work experience are like episodes of a stream of conscious narrative rather than the chapters of a beginning-middle-end book, since these episodes don’t necessarily have anything to do with each other. For example, my experience at one workplace has almost nothing to do with another, given that the employees at both places don’t know each other, and the businesses/organizations are completely different. The same could be said of where we live or where we’ve ended up, since those don’t necessarily follow logically like an architectural blueprint, but happen organically from what’s inspired us, the things we’ve learned from our mistakes, and the curve balls that have come our way, whether that be illnesses or job opportunities or the realization that we must change course given the stagnation or dilemmas of our path.

The same could be said of the people that come and go in our lives, the places we visited, the conversations we had with them. But in hindsight, they’re random and disconnected from the linear path we’ve tried to sail on. At the time we experienced them, it seemed like those experiences will last forever. Albeit, nothing is permanent as time passes. The environment and our jobs and the people we knew have changed and are no longer the same as our memories of them. Even our thoughts and ideas aren’t permanent, since they’re continuously change from minute to minute, and hour to hour.

It makes me wonder about the things I write, including this post, and the stories I’ve written. Is there any permanence to them, or are they trapped in a time capsule, relevant now but forgotten later, only to be mulled over once the time capsule has been opened?