Lost to Time

I was talking to the Queen last night, and we delved into some philosophical territory. If you ever give a thought to life and what it means to you and creation, you may eventually come to the sobering revelation that much of what you do on this planet will be completely forgotten, not only by everyone you know, but by you as well. Every day, we seem to trudge forward hoping to make a difference, but when you take two steps back, what sort of difference are we hoping to make? What sort of impact are we hoping for by taking the left road instead of the right one?

I remember seeing a graphic once showing an eventual timeline of the universe from the theoretical big bang to the theoretical burning out and death of everything. It's the sort of thing that brings up the existential question of "If nothing existed, what would there be?" This timeline started with the average person's lifespan and "zoomed out" little by little through periods of earth history to the history of the solar system to the lifespan of the sun and on out, all the while focusing on the period we just came from. It made our lifespan a speck on a universal scale.

Where does that leave us? Even if you ponder known history, our lives are very tiny. How many people have walked the earth? How many lives were lived from birth to death in obscurity? Most of them, actually. The number of truly "famous" people is extremely small. And of the really famous people, how much of their lives are lost? How many are reduced to a series of dates? We can find out dates for Abraham Lincoln on when he was born, died, got married, had children, some of his work, etc., but we do not know much about his childhood beyond what might be anecdotal. We don't know much about his day to day life, even as a president. Sure, major engagements might be recorded, but not the little things. What did he and his wife like to talk about? What was their fondest memory, I wonder? Is there any truth to Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter? You see, that movie plays into the fundamental truth that there are gaps in history. It's the same sort of thing that Assassin's Creed III does with the revolutionary war. We know when the major stuff happened, but we can't know the conversations and who went in and out. Maybe there was a freelance assassin named Connor who helped out. Who knows?

While that comes off as ridiculous, that's just famous people. How about the next person that walks past you? How about the person who sits next to you at work? How about the person you might consider your best friend? How much do you know about them? How much do they know about you? Next to nothing is probably fairly close to the truth. You might say, "Well they know this and that," but they also only know what you tell them. Did you cover your childhood in detail? Did you tell them all about your weekend in every detail (ok, so probably)?

Even people who are open tend not to tell of everything. Even if you know it all, that's just you. What happens to their story when they're gone? How much do you know about your parents? Grandparents? Great-grandparents? I imagine the list kept getting shorter. Personally, the extent of what I know about my great-grandparents are their names, birth and death dates, and the dates they got married (for some of them). That's it.

It's as sad as a tombstone. I read once that the most important part of a tombstone isn't the dates that tell birth and death, but the dash that connects them. That dash contains so many experiences and no matter who it is, so much life, that it isn't fair that someone's entire existence is reduced to a dash.

Sometimes, I think when I walk in a crowd of people that attached to every face I see is a story. An entire life story from beginning to the present day just as full and complete as my own. I know that every person who walks past me is walking there for a purpose that they know. They left some place to show up where I saw them for a reason known to them, and once they are done, they will leave and go somewhere else. I may or may not ever see them again.

Billions of stories. Billions of them are lost every day, and we don't even realize it. But really, what could anyone do with all of that? We try to tell our stories to our children, and I dare say, if our children react the way we did upon hearing those stories, they will remember them just as well as we remembered our parents' stories. Those who fail to learn the lessons of the past are doomed to repeat them, and I can't help but wonder how many times we've repeated the same mistakes.

Maybe you are one of the few who, like me, have not only created a blog, but have kept up with it by writing down the various things that happen while supplying the occasional story of the past. Swell, but you know that blogger.com isn't forever. Someday, the site will die, and the data will be forever lost, and the stories forever gone.

Then there's the more sobering reality: who reads it anyway? If you're like me, then you probably find that the stats on your site consist of maybe two or three hits a day. It's probably one or two consistent readers, if you're lucky, and some accidental hits.

What does this add up to? It means that all the things that you weigh in your life as so significant are just little things that make up a big picture. They are things that pass and something else will take its place eventually. We are on this rock for a limited time in the larger scale of things, and eventually, we will pass on leaving the rock to someone else. They will eventually forget us. Some may last longer than others, but even those who last will only be a name. People know of Edgar Allen Poe, who never thought he'd be remembered, but he is little more than a name.

As for what comes next, none of us can confirm it. I believe in the Christian ideals where faith in God and Jesus promises an eternal life, but my human brain cannot comprehend something like "eternity." Remember that scale I mentioned. Eternity would be that whole thing and then some. I can't comprehend a hundred years. I have no hope of understanding eternity until I get there.

Point is that while we're here, we have to make the most of what we have to work with. We have our own company to keep, and our families to tend. Life is a miracle, and should always be treated as such.