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Look, philosophy. For the once-a-quarter writing prompts our lovely district mandates.
I had to write about my favorite holiday song (for band class, go figure) and... well, here it is.
My favorite holiday song is “O Christmas Tree.” Ironically, the song hails the permanence of the color of the leaves of the tree: evergreen. Green in winters. Green in summers. Green in autumns past. Green in springs to come. And yet, in a few short weeks, when the holiday season is over, the tree’s leaves will be dead and brown.
We have an artificial tree this year. It’ll be brought out for the future years, put on display, and promptly lose its situational place in front of the fireplace a few weeks later. And yet, in spite of its temporary appearance in our living room, it leads an existence that will never terminate. It is immortal. And that is why there is nothing special about it. That is why its existence, albeit endless, will never be whole. Say there is no death; only the introduction into the world with no end to conclude it. In an infinite lifespan, all things can be achieved, but at the same time, all things can wait. When time is made irrelevant, so, too, is what occurs within it. Mortality is something that makes existence special. It is one of the best deals you are forced into at birth, and reap the benefits of in death.
What is existence, then, if it never ends? If there is no transience, no evanescence, no mutability of existence, what is it? A life that never happens is just as whole as a life that never ends. That is to say, neither is whole.
The Christmas tree which is planted, grown, cut down, moved, bought, and decorated in my household—that is the tree which has lead a whole, authentic existence. It has lived one lifetime, the trees before it have died, and the trees to follow will be born. If there is one hindrance to existence which immortality poses, it is posterity. If a thousand past generations are still alive, the current one will be bound to ancient practices; life will only be lived through the past experiences of previous generations; everything that could possibly happen already has; the individual will never know life.
 Someone Somewhere Else · Fri Dec 25, 2009 @ 09:34pm · 0 Comments |
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