[at-l] Semi OT - Shakespeare

[shane at theplacewithnoname.com (Shane Steinkamp)]

> [Curtis]
> Yes, one day the sun will go out and that will be the end of
> Shakespeare too.

Well, you know how to pull a sucker punch...

The answer, though, can actually be found in Shakespeare...because
Shakespeare knew it too...

"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle.
Life's but a walking shadow. A poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by and idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing." - Shakespeare (MacBeth)


To be honest, though, it's not that bad.  Tomorrow is one of the magic words
in the English language. Tomorrow never comes. We are chronically stuck in
today - the ever-present now. For me, the phrase 'Tomorrow and tomorrow and
tomorrow.' has quite a different meaning from the forlorn despair of
Shakespeare.
Scientists have estimated the age of this universe, and the probable time
when it will collapse. If you look at the figures, you come to realize that
we are living at the very beginning of the universe. Long after the greatest
works of humanity have crumbled into atoms, a sun will rise on another
planet. Tomorrow will never come there either. One day though, at the end of
time, everything will come to a stunning halt. The universe will have ended.
Everything we have ever done - or ever will do - will have no meaning then.
It will be judgment day, and everyone will receive the same sentence:
Oblivion.

Unlike Shakespeare, I am strangely comforted by, and find no morbidity in,
this realization. In the end, we will all return to the darkness. But until
then, we are the universe. It is very strange to me that many people think
of themselves as being IN the universe. You aren't IN the universe, anymore
than you are ON the planet. You are made of the same stuff as the stars. You
are part of the universe, and part of the planet. You can go into the
wilderness, see an animal, and say that the animal is part of nature, but
YOU are part of nature too. You are that part of the universe that observes
itself. You have a habitat, and a natural place in the natural order. Humans
have chosen to live in a cage and call it a house. It is up to you to
rediscover your natural state. While it is almost impossible to abandon the
artificial habitat of civilization, we can at least discover our humanity.
Perhaps we can even start tomorrow...

Shane