Bravado and the Setting Sun

FTLComm - Tisdale - Saturday, August 10, 2002

For all that we know and understand the day, the night, the elements of land and sky, are but transient matter, without awareness, without self determination and certainly dependent upon each other for their existence. Knowing and understanding that what we see is not a life form but an environment, does not prevent us from attributing motivation, attitude if you will, to these "things." To me a sunset is a crass example of bravado. The sun

beaming out is endless energy totally uncaring that ninety-three million miles away an insignificant planet with peculiar beings on its surface have only recently discovered that the sun is semi stationary and the planet on which they reside revolves creating each day with its sun rise and sunset. Yet the sunset becomes a thing, something that transfixes us with its beauty, a bold showoff of the day about to end in the oblivion of night. Dazzles us with one last brilliant flare of colour and then fades to black. We who do not share the suns almost immortality know full well that indeed the forces of time and circumstance confine our number of sunrises and sunsets. Each one a part of our own personal limited set, each one comes and is gone forever just as we are. Our awareness, our constructs of understanding and apparent consciousness all just a short sequence, "here for a limited time only." We each live our lives with a similar bravado, just like each sunset we never really question our continued existence even though deep inside we all know that our fire will go out and so we bravely make what little mark we can on the reality around us, we notice our footprints and hope others will see them as well but like the setting sun it is vane bravado.