Centuries media

I visited the Norton Simon Museum yesterday.

The museum has an Asian art collection which includes Buddhist and Hindu sculptures. Many date back to the 11th century and further.

It was humbling to see things that have lasted 1000 years. Modernity is ephemera: “yesterday’s news”, “____ of the day”, “trending reports”, download and delete.

Stone is stone.

It outlasts the humans that shape it. It has its own life. The life moves slowly, imperceptibly. Its minutes are millions of years. When its alarm goes off, the earth heaves.

I attended a poetry reading yesterday. One poet was an older man. Someone asked him how he became a poet. He said that when he turned 55, he realized he wanted to do something that would outlast him.

What will I do that will outlast me?

Contemplating this makes everything seem small. The gigabytes of data aimed at my inbox like rockets fall away. Facebook “friends” fall away. Material goods – or the lack thereof – fall away. But where the next meal will come from: that fight is eternal.

Something stirs. I want to cleanse myself of gnats: the human ones, the frustrations they cause, the fears that flit around my mind. I want to hear the centuries. I want to learn their lessons. And I want not to want. That is the cause of suffering.

So I listen to Dolorian.