XIII. Fleeting; failure, gratitude, rest
Nothing lasts! Nothing is given, yet we expect we will be able to take it from a full hand. Until the day the hand falls, and we do with it. You don't know what you've got till it's gone; it wouldn't be a saying if we didn't need to hear it. What does it mean to lose something you thought you could stand on? The floor under you, but also the shoes you wear, the very skin on your feet? How can we possibly navigate the world and be truly grateful for all that we have? Should we? What does it mean to feel worthy of something, if we know that, in the end, nothing is owed to us? Or, rather, is it that we are owed everything? We are owed all the happiness and love and forgiveness we could ever ask for? And it is not getting it that makes us bitter? That makes us withhold it? Who manufactures failure? If nothing in life is certain, constant, or given, how can we possibly fail? And yet, then, like entropy, failure seems to be the natural state of things. How is failure different from rest, and rest different from failure?