As If The Things That Irritate Us Lasted

Gillian Welch / David Rawlings: I'm Not Afraid to Die...12/29/16

Keep in mind
how fast things
pass by and are gone
--those that are now,
and those to come.
Existence flows past us
like a river:
the what
is in constant flux,
the why
has a thousand variations.
Nothing is stable,
not even what’s right here.
The infinity of past and future
gapes before us
--a chasm whose depths
we cannot see.
So it would take an idiot
to feel self-importance
or distress.
Or any indignation, either.
As if the things that irritate us lasted.

--Marcus Aurelius
Meditations