The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [46]
2. This vanity finds expression in the whole way in which things exist;
3. In the infinite nature of time and space, contrasted to the finite nature of individuals;
4. In the ever-passing present moment; in the dependence and relativity of all things;
5. In continual becoming without ever being; in constant wishing and never being satisfied;
6. In the long battle which forms the history of life, where every effort is checked by difficulties.
7. Time is that in which all things pass away; it is merely the form in which we discover that effort is vain;
8. It is the agent by which everything in our hands every moment becomes as nothing.
9. That which has been exists no more; it exists as little as that which has never been.
10. Hence a thing of great importance now past is inferior to something of little importance now present, because the latter alone seems real.
11. A man finds himself, to his great astonishment, suddenly existing, after millions of years of non-existence:
12. He lives for a while, and then again comes an equally long period when he exists no more.
13. The heart rebels against this, and suffers at the thought.
14. Of every event in life we can say only for one moment that it is; for ever after, that it was.
15. Every evening we are poorer by a day. It makes us mad to see how rapidly our short span of time ebbs away;
16. This might lead us to believe that the greatest wisdom is to make the enjoyment of the present the supreme object of life,
17. Because that is the only reality, all else being merely the play of thought.
18. Yet such a course might as well be called the greatest folly:
19. For that which in the next moment exists no more, and vanishes utterly, like a dream, can never be worth serious consideration.
20. The whole foundation on which our existence rests is the ever-fleeting present.
21. It lies, then, in the very nature of our existence to take the form of constant motion,
22. And to offer no possibility of our ever attaining the rest for which we are always striving.
23. We are like people running downhill, who cannot keep on their legs unless they run on, and will inevitably fall if they stop;
24. Or, again, like a pole balanced on the tip of one’s finger; or like a planet, which would fall into its sun the moment it ceased to hurry on its way.
25. Unrest is the mark of existence.
26. In a world where all is unstable, and nothing can endure, but is swept onwards at once in the hurrying whirlpool of change,
27. Where a man, if he is to keep erect at all, must always be advancing and moving, like an acrobat on a rope;
28. In such a world, happiness is inconceivable.
Chapter 9
1. The scenes of our life are like pictures in rough mosaic: looked at closely, they produce no effect.
2. There is nothing beautiful to be found in them, unless you stand some distance away.
3. So, to gain anything we have longed for is only to discover how vain and empty it is;
4. And even though we are always living in expectation of better things,
5. At the same time we often repent and long to have the past back again.
6. We look upon the present as something to be endured while it lasts.
7. Hence most people, if they glance back when they come to the end of life, will find that all along they have not been living, but merely waiting to live;
8. They will be surprised to find that the very thing they disregarded and allowed to pass them by unenjoyed, was the life they were expecting.
9. Of how many people may it not be said that hope made fools of them until they danced into the arms of death!
10. Then again, how insatiable a creature is a human being! Every satisfaction attained sows the seeds of some new desire,
11. So that there is no end to the wishes of each individual will.
12. And why? Because no single thing can ever give satisfaction, but only the whole, which is endless.
13. Life presents itself as a task – the task of surviving, of maintaining life and a precarious equilibrium.
14. Thus life is a burden, and then there comes the second task