What’s it all about? What’s it all for? Why are we here? Where are we headed and what will we do when we get there? Just the other day I was talking with my Mum and I mentioned that a well known person, from our hometown, had passed away. My mother was sad to hear the news and she said to me (as so many have said before her) “When you get to my age...all your friends start to die around you.” “ Yes that’s true, but I guess we’re all on the same treadmill.” I replied. I wasn’t meaning to diminish what my mother was feeling, although in hindsight it sounds like a harsh retort. If anything, I was trying to show that I could empathize as we are all aligned to the same trajectory. Some of us don’t even get the chance to step on the moving pathway. Some of us fall off far too soon. Some get to ride right to the very last, as all those by our side fall away, leaving us to face the end alone. This may seem to be the grimmest of topics. The sort of ‘heavy’ conversation that makes us yearn for the ‘lighter’ things in life. Bear with me as I hope to offer a view that finds comfort in the bleakness that awaits us, but be warned, many mixed metaphors and a questionable use of punctuation may lie ahead. I remember being about 7 years old when I was walking through Gunnedah Cemetery with my Dad. I had begun to notice the inscriptions on the headstones. I looked at the dates, the births, the deaths, the extreme length or shortness of time between the two. I recall a wave of dread as I realized the implications and my place in the scheme of things. It seems like a cruel joke that at about the same time we are struggling with the notion of our existence we in turn have to grapple with the concept of our past and future nonexistence. I began to think about the people in the ground. What had they done in their time on Earth? Where had they travelled to? Did they live out all of their days here or had the gone far and wide only to return home. I resolved then and there to make sure that I explored as much of the world as I could. I knew that I wanted to travel, but I also wanted to make sure that I tried to live the fullest of lives. I felt so sad for the children laid to rest there. My short life seemed so long compared to those that only had days, weeks, and years countable on one hand only. “Carpe Diem” I did not know the famous call to arms at that time, but I felt it instinctively as I day dreamt in my father’s footsteps. Life has a way of occupying your attention, consuming your time with day to day concerns, and sidetracking you with dead end emotions and trivial activities. Before we know what has hit us we are swept away by life’s challenges. We find ourselves pushed here and there. So many tasks for ourselves and so many chores required by others. The seemingly endless lazy summers of our youth fade into memory, to be replaced by mid semester breaks, long weekends, rostered days off, annual leave, sick days, family weddings, conference calls, internal meetings, daily commutes, midnight runs for milk and bread, and all manner of things. The everyday activities that chew through our time. When we get a chance to pause we allow ourselves the briefest moments of rest and reflection. Most of us find that we don’t mind building our lives. Working feverishly for ourselves and/or others. We find a niche and fill it. Each role helps us a little. Piece by piece we build our place and we help to maintain the world that has been built around us. Each person plays a part, whether it be big or small, some lives are seemingly key to specific moments in time whilst some lives seem to come and go with no apparent import or consequence. Some lives seem to weigh heavy upon the world and some lives have such a lightness and brevity that they appear to vanish before our eyes. Can we really give one life more value or merit over another? How can we possibly know which life will bristle with ramifications and which one will pass on only to be markedly unremarkable? Every single life has a connection to the past, present, and future. Every moment connected to the next. Some moments appear to have longer lasting ramifications than others. Just as some lives seem to influence the world for generations to come. This does not mean that one life is more important. Life, like just about everything, is a spectrum. Each colour does not exist in isolation. Each colour bleeds into the next. Our eyes see a range of colours and our ears hear a range of frequencies. We need the high notes to contrast the low. We need the loudest sounds to balance the, almost imperceptible, quiet sounds. Even then we do not hear or see everything around us. I remember the day that I realized the reason why we couldn’t look directly at the Sun. I squinted at the raging ball then looked away only to see the ghost of the Sun still glowing in my vision. If we could see the sun then we would see it only and we would then be blind to all the subtlety of the world around us. So to if we only look at the famous, the notorious, or the noteworthy, then we will become blind to all the other lives around us that don’t appear to burn so intensely. I’ve let myself be distracted and lost the focus of what I wanted to say. What’s it all about? Why are we here? We are all a part of a golden thread tied to the arrow of time. Some strings snap and fall away, but the thread itself remains unbroken. Everything connected and every single particle as important as the next. Why are we here?...because we are here? What’s it all mean? For every answer there will be a new question. We build our understanding in some areas only to forget it in others. Where are we headed and what will we do when we get there?…We’re headed forwards because, for now, there is no other way to go. The arrow of time pulls the golden thread behind it. Every person is part of that thread. Every life contributes. Every strand as integral as the next. All of us defying the merciless entropy and the cold still blackness of empty space. We are life. We rage, we feed, we fight, we fuck, we fall, we fuck up, we live, we love, we laugh, we cry, we join together, we sit alone, we are our fathers, we are our mothers, we are ourselves, we are our children, we are the lost, we are the found, we are the leaders, and the followers. We may find everything or we may lose it all along the way. We are all in this together and we will see it through until the very end. Come what may.