posterity

a life written out: is it more lived than the life plodding in silence? the walking, speaking, moving, thrusting life? the universality of words makes the written life seem interesting, but only from the right pen on the right paper at the right time, otherwise it is just another life that plods and crawls, gasps and fades and blends in to the fray like a stalk of corn in Iowa, like another wave in the ocean. the record: it is the record. we are burying ourselves with our recordings of the moments, like sediment in a dead ocean bed, and we will be the fossils one day, we will be the marvel of the time to come. the pictorial procession or the novellic scripture will be the secrets, and everything we've lain upon the ground will be golden. that is the hope, correct? in photographs with dulled edges, or yellowed written pages from history, or warped warbling phonographs, the novelty of time stretched to the breaking point makes the most benign life seem so shockingly, heartbreakingly beautiful; the television repair man looks like Clark Gable, the seamstress seems like Athena. to witness a surviving record of life attempting, striving, yearning to be lived is deeply moving. an old photograph needs no caption or date, no names or places, just the fuzzed-out quality of the scene and the burning desire in every half-smile and half-open eye is a story we all know, that of life burning to be lived at every moment. the records we leave, what we hope to leave in our wake, is a testament to having lived, bled, having walked and breathed and sweated and made love, a drama so dense it would be a wonder we ever had time to sleep. (of course Clark Gable and Athena must've slept sometime). that is the wonder of posterity, how a life so mundane, even a life well-lived yet stocked with mundane moments can seem with hindsight to have been a whirlwind of razorblades and honey, a tragicomic storm of emotions, dreams, and happenstance.

leave behind only bones, and we'll look like martyrs.