A young king once commanded all the wise men of the kingdom to write down all of the wisdom of man gathered through the ages. They labored ten long years, and presented the king with twelve scrolls. "Here" they proclaimed, "is everything mankind has learned from the dawn of time." "Excellent," the king replies, "but twelve scrolls are too many. Reduce it to a single scroll." The wise men labored another ten years, and presented the king with one scroll which bore the wisdom of man distilled to its essence. "I cannot remember an entire scroll," the king complained. "Reduce this to a single page." Ten years later, the wise men presented the king, now well-advanced in years, with the page on which was written the very core of human wisdom. "I'd like to carry this in my mind," the king said, "and my memory is not as good as it once was. Reduce it once again, this time to a single sentence." The wise men took the page, and after another ten years, presented the now aged king with a single sentence which formed the very foundation of all the wisdom of man. And the sentence was:
"This too shall pass."
And so it shall. Our greatest endeavors, all of the huge edifices we create to honor man's ingenuity and brilliance, will one day be consigned to the dim recesses of history. Smart phones, Google, Obamacare, someday all of the things we consider to be "cutting edge" will be talked about with the same historical remoteness with which we talk about the abacus and the horse-drawn carriage. And those who engage in those historical discussions will wonder at our ignorance and at the very thought that we considered ourselves advanced.
But not everything we create will be so consigned to history. Some things will endure. And how often have the most enduring figures of the past been the ones scoffed at and dismissed as insignificant by their contemporaries?
We need to create with an eye toward the future. Not the immediate future, not a mere ten or twenty years, but centuries hence. Will the people in that era be aware that we lived, and be glad of it?
Which among our great endeavors shall, finally, pass? And which will remain to shape the world built on their ruins? If we create with these questions in mind, then perhaps we will escape the edict of the king's wise man, and truly become immortal.
"This too shall pass."
And so it shall. Our greatest endeavors, all of the huge edifices we create to honor man's ingenuity and brilliance, will one day be consigned to the dim recesses of history. Smart phones, Google, Obamacare, someday all of the things we consider to be "cutting edge" will be talked about with the same historical remoteness with which we talk about the abacus and the horse-drawn carriage. And those who engage in those historical discussions will wonder at our ignorance and at the very thought that we considered ourselves advanced.
But not everything we create will be so consigned to history. Some things will endure. And how often have the most enduring figures of the past been the ones scoffed at and dismissed as insignificant by their contemporaries?
We need to create with an eye toward the future. Not the immediate future, not a mere ten or twenty years, but centuries hence. Will the people in that era be aware that we lived, and be glad of it?
Which among our great endeavors shall, finally, pass? And which will remain to shape the world built on their ruins? If we create with these questions in mind, then perhaps we will escape the edict of the king's wise man, and truly become immortal.