Life | The Big Picture

The Big Picture

©2023 by Vernon Miles Kerr and VernonMilesKerr.com

Is Human Life Futile?

During my furious writing activity, especially after retirement, my thinking on the “big picture” has evolved. I wrote the following poem in 2009 as a despondent cry, when I realized that my own life and that of others was so temporary. The span between the darkness of pre-existence and the darkness of death is so short. We leave but an echo, which soon diminishes as our contmporaries begin to die-off too. Oh, yes — we can leave great works of “art,” but civilizations and even planets are also temporary. Here’s the Poem:

I  N   T H E   I N T E R I M
©2009 by Vernon Miles Kerr

In the interim ‘tween dark and dark
We scrape, we scratch, we endure—
Assuming import.
As that interim narrows to a slit
We scramble anxiously to gather
Shreds of legacy,
Scraps of relevancy,
Hoping that they will live on
In the interim of others,
Until we remember,
Their interims
Are narrowing too.

Think about it. Is physical existence that shallow? Is human existence that futile? I thought about it. I decided, no, If physical existence were purely temporary matter, then these miraculous brains of ours, being able to do stuff — like my even posing THIS question — are a huge JOKE. (And so is the Universe.) To resolve the “dissonance,” our lives MUST BE recorded on sone permanent “essence” that isn’t dependent upon the existence of matter.