The Transient Nature of Life

Bogged down by the instant reel of entertainment and stimulation given to me by the modern world, I notice a sentence, a paragraph on a social media post. A piece of lyrics, albeit unintentional, from a song decades old, sung even by my grandparents and preserved till modern time in memory and melody.

It is a song of nostalgia with an air of sadness and regret, a poem in which the passing of old and forgotten paths in the country is lamented, being overgrown by bushes and grass. The lyric becomes a window for me, a window into a world of emotion that I have barred myself entry from, one of nostalgia and sadness at the ever passing and changing arena of life. Sadness overwhelms me and I allow myself to cry. For all that I’ve lost and for all of those things which the river of life will inevitably take away from me.

When we live our lives, full of frivolousness, do we realize, do we ever understand how transient they are? It is in our youth that we believe our bodies, our families, our friends, our world will remain the same. Yet age gradually erodes that illusion. It so brutally and completely shows us how impossible it is to hold on to anything, without our hearts being torn to pieces at its loss. We make connections and lose them, our loved ones pass on, our lives change and so does the very world around us. The old never to be seen again.