Irrelevance and Impermanence

So much of what drives us to self destructive behaviours is driven by fear.

We fear irrelevance... that I am not.

We fear our impermanence.

Too often, people learn the fastest road to relevance is through violence. The most expedient route to being the most relevant person in the room is to do something unspeakably violent. People are pushed to this by being made to feel irrelevant by the false relevance of others. Groups in power, who have indeed usually achieved their relevance through historical violence of various forms, make those that are “other” feel irrelevant and the cycle of violence continues. These are massive wrongs that need fixing and not the focus of this particular musing. However, perhaps some personal introspection may nudge things of this nature in the right direction.

Of course I am not. That’s the last thing anyone wants to hear but let’s face it, in a hundred years; all new people. We are the absolute embodiment of rapid change right down to the cellular level. Yet we all still strive for legacies, and large headstones that eventually no one will visit rather than putting all of that energy into accepting our fleeting nature and striving to be a positive force in this moment.

Instead, we embrace all kinds of activity and thinking to create this smoke screen to keep ourselves safe from our impermanence. We devalue aging and all that goes with it to a staggering degree. Hell, I remember when it was a time of personal celebration when pubic hair started to appear. Now, people can’t get rid of body hair of all kinds fast enough as we desperately try and force ourselves back to a long passed and fanciful neotenous state... often furthered by cosmetic surgery or other extreme measures. All of this to achieve, what we have been indoctrinated to believe, is some embodiment of the most permanent and relevant form possible.

Radical acceptance of these things isn’t safe. It’s downright courageous to face all these fears and see ourselves in the stark light of truth. This truth will remove all those personal barriers that somewhere along the line we agreed to. It will be revealed that the persona we work so hard at just keeps us from truly connecting with everything around us. In this moment, we are all in this together and we are each beautiful.

It is indeed a courageous turn to overcome these fears embrace our irrelevance and impermanence. I’ve found it a path worth travelling. Or you can just keep on shaving your pubes.