Let me just pose the question here: What matters in the perspective of history?
"This is the hour of lead"
Emily Dickinson said
And so it was, as beneath a brilliant moon
The weary creators left far too soon
And the pictures dripped down the walls
And the golden rats drowned in the halls
I believe they abandoned it long ago...
The doors don't bang when the ghosts come and go
I don't suppose they care anymore
That rising water has washed away the door
And the ancient, gravelly roof is caving in
While the king takes his tea with Saladin
A stray dog sniffs the sandy towers
In the courtyard sprout some sorry flowers...
But once here sand soldiers died; there was a terrible battle
Too many wounded, too many gasping their death rattle...
For in the end, even Rome fell
And in the end, only the sand will tell...
Have you thought about it? I'll ask again: What can possibly matter in the perspective of history? One person's life? One government? One species? In the end, will any of this matter?
I'm terribly sorry, but I don't have any answers, but I think that, in the end, nothing really does. At the end of the universe, nothing we do will be remembered. Only electrons will remain, floating in ever-increasing space. In some ways, human pride cannot stand this answer: for about three hundred years now we've been searching for ways to triumph over acts of nature and God with logic and science. We express either humility or hubris, but secretly we believe that we are the alpha and the omega. Is it true? Or is everything we build and create and discover just waiting to be washed away by the sea of time?