There's a common thread in
Western culture of the realized
infinite -- a conception of
infinity that one doesn't have to think about in the abstract, but instead can
understand personally, even experience for one's self. We've come up with
rhythm,
mathematics,
heaven,
psychedelics,
beauty,
love,
hate, and so forth, all to convince ourselves in different ways that we (as a single person or part of a group) will create (immediately or eventually) something which will be
timeless.
Perhaps it's an issue of comfort? It feels comforting to suppose that when you are gone, something you have done will survive and benefit reality in your stead. It comforts others to be assured their piece of forever, too; another's immortal love for them, another's wish for their eternal companionship. Instead of the tension of not knowing what the future holds -- or if it holds anything at all -- we grant ourselves peace by ignoring the near certainty that all of our achievements will be noise when we no longer exist to interpret them.
I realize the laws of thermodynamics feel wrong, feel empty/dirty/ruthless/hopeless, but nothing's ever suggested that they might be false. It is out of entropy from which you arose, and back into entropy which you shall return -- any deity will tell you the same. Patterns dissolve and are absorbed, resolution slackens, lines blur and fade away. Your own elaborate biochemistry, working hard to defeat entropy for a few more units of time, will eventually have too many broken pieces to stay coherent. Likewise, every bit of functioning pattern in reality will eventually suffer too much noise, too much needless energy expenditure, too much imposition of chaos upon its order; and likewise, its coherence will shatter.
Put in as few words possible: Enjoy your experiences and creations for all they are worth, but know always that none of them will last more than a heartbeat on the time scale of eternity.
No beautiful, truthful, perfect words.
No proud stone monuments.
No perfect eyes and warm embrace.
No vista of mountains and forest.
Fuck-nothing.