Reclaiming The World
We may think that what we have built will endure. There is civilisation here, with buildings, roads, and concreted paths. There are stone structures, wooden structures, and metal structures. We have shaped our world, and we have created our society. We may think that what we have achieved will last forever, and that it will have meaning.
In truth, there have been civilisations before this one; buildings and paths and tools and objects built and shaped by man thousands of years ago, and these have not endured, these have risen and fallen, and been consumed back into the earth. We might be surprised at how quickly the earth will reclaim our world when we are gone and no longer care for our creations and possessions. The desert reclaims, the grass and the weeds and the plants reclaim, the bugs and the insects and the animals reclaim. Cracks appear in the concrete, moss grows on the mat, and like civilisations before ours, this will not last. We will not last.
But we need not be concerned. If things endured forever, we would know only constancy and stagnation. As things change, we may at least find those changes interesting. For things to be always fresh and new, that is the greatest gift of all.
“Everything fleeting; the world is renewed.”