A Reflection
11 Jan 2021Dropstone Ted
There is an ancient apothegm which states that “History doesn’t necessarily repeat itself, but it does echo.” I can dig that. It fits mechanically with objective reality, like, in a metaphysical sense. The universe is forever quivering like some cosmic tuning fork -- everything that is or has ever been; anything that has ever happened, or that anyone has ever done – all are just perturbations of energy, ripples on an eternal ocean. Echoes.We all hear them. We live in their thrall. We are *of* them. Frequently, and without really thinking about it, we act on them, thinking we have done something purposeful, something of consequence. Something unique. We like to think we can do that.
Philosophers will debate the true extent of self-determination, but at the end of the day we are bubbles in a stream, constrained by the circumstances of our existence, from which we can never see the beginning or the end of our journey. We can consider ourselves fortunate if we can tell which direction we are going as we float on the ever-present cushion of that background din, flowing harmoniously in its course. To struggle – to paddle against the current; to fight to alter the course of events - is to violate natural order. Entropy wants the ship to be quickly dashed upon the rocks, though the pilot fights to bring the ship safely to dock. The pilot is not concerned with the reality that entropy will have her way in time. The paint will peel, the fasteners will rust, and the structure will collapse into rubble. Ultimately, the molecules and atoms that made up its physical mass will vaporize into pure energy from the surface of a decaying black dwarf at some inconceivably distant point in the future. That’s how this all goes down. Humans are notoriously limited in their ability to perceive that kind of long view, yet - as far as we know - we are the first species to perceive this end state of all things. Never the less, we are stubborn in our insistence to chart our own destinies.
Every action we take asserts our insistence on influencing the here and now, and maybe a little beyond that. We draw upon the echoes of what came before, and create our own in turn. They reflect and reverberate – ripples cascading across space and time - sometimes diminishing to imperceptibility, sometimes amplifying in chance synergies, joining with other echoes in a greater shared consequence. Such is the flap of a butterfly’s wing that creates a thunderstorm on the other side of the world. The echoes of our actions make up the tune that the universe plays, a cosmic soundtrack for that brief moment that we can see our place in it.
My path is more convoluted than many. Today, I reflect upon the past year, at the beginning of which I put in my application to enter the Pilot’s Federation District. There were those who patted me on the back and wished me well, and still others who could not comprehend my decision to leave them behind. They put the question to me, “why?” At the time, I assumed it was because they understood the ultimate insignificance of the actions of an individual in the grand scheme of the universe. Increasingly, though, I’ve been thinking that it’s because in my own actions they saw something of themselves, and feared what that meant. They fear the idea of being unbound, losing the bonds of identity, until “home” becomes little more than a memory. I have no such fear any more; I’ve seen what once was my home and, while I was ready to return to it, it was no longer there for me. It took a while, but I think I've made my peace with that.
“You can’t go home again,” a wiser man than I once said. I can empathize. I am but a relic of a lost age, claiming my place amongst the echoes.