2024-06-17
We are in service to our future selves. We feed them, clothe them, fund them, sustain them. Every action we take is a choice that they will either benefit from or suffer from, propogating ever onwards to the very last self; and even they are in service to the next iteration. Each has a part to play.
In turn, we benefit and suffer from the choices of the selves long past. They are gone now, but we are responsible for their ghosts. When they fail to clean the space, we are left doing their work. When they suffer to spare us pain, we feel the relief that comes after. When they celebrate their lives, we clean up after them and enjoy the remnants of their happiness. Their choices are a gift or curse for us in the present.
We in the present have the chance to lay our past selves to rest and pass the torch on to whoever comes next. Those in the past had wishes and goals. We may choose to see those wishes through, to carry them forwards; or we may choose to discard them and leave them unseen. In turn, we may be kind to the selves of tomorrow, or we may be cruel. Neither will affect us in the present, but we will be remembered for the decisions we make. They will matter to someone else.
It is not necessarily the pattern of "me" that persists over a lifetime, but the connections between the patterns that come before and after. You are not your memory; you are your continuity. Even things that appear to break the chain carry it forwards. You are eaten, and the chain continues through your sustaining another. You explode, and the chain continues through the waves of residue nourishing the soil and floating in the air. You die, and the world around you picks up the torch to carry on the chain. There is no end. There is no beginning. You have always been and always will be.
We are alive. We are insignificant and we are infinite. No self is more important than any other. Allow your moment to have impact.