Finite

“Even though you seize the day, it still will flee; therefore, you must vie with time’s swiftness in the speed of using it, and, as from a torrent that rushes by and will not always flow, you must drink quickly.” - Seneca

My legs dangle over the dock as the gentle swell of Copenhagen’s harbour laps against the pylons below. The sun is warm on my face as I make a half hearted effort to dry myself, draping my towel around my shoulders as my friends swim in the water below. While I watch the gentle to and fro of the boats in the harbour I can’t help but reflect that this is the end of a glorious month long holiday in Europe and at the same time, lament that it’s over. This moment in time with these wonderful people won’t come again, it was a one-time deal. 

Putting aside my considerable awareness of how lucky I am to even be able to experience these things (many struggle to put food on the table, never mind enjoy international holidays), this sudden apprehension of the movement of time is universal. We all notice the pace at which the young develop from screaming, crying lumps of ‘joy’ to walking, talking, coding, startup founders. But is that outward reflection, directed at someone else, a pause for us to reflect on the time we have experienced? 

Travel is a reflection of how we spend our time. ‘How many nights would you like to stay? And how long will you be in the country?’ While often gauged by how much we can afford or how much leave our employers allow, the length of a holiday is a stark reminder of what we can experience in a set amount of time. How many art galleries, coffees, hugs, laughs, photos, posts, likes. Whatever the yardstick of a successful holiday, we can’t help but ponder this when it comes time to get on the plane home or package up and summarise for a colleague who’s polite enough to ask when you get back into the office. 

It’s when things come to an end that we’re starkly reminded of the time that has elapsed. As each day starts, each holiday begins, the sun will eventually set and that plane home will land. This full cycle of beginning, middle, and end, packaged up into a bite sized morsel for us to munch and reflect that things are not forever. 

Many experience this on a weekly basis, as the cycle of the week comes to a close on a Sunday night and we prepare to restart. But instead of lamenting the week gone by, we’re instead struck by the paralysing fear of the uncertainty of the week ahead. The ‘Sunday Blues’ soon evaporate once Monday arrives and the routine takes full focus once more. Only the ritual of the work week is able to distract us from this sensation of standing on the edge once more. 

So, the movement of time and the limited nature of everything we experience can be noticed looking both backwards and forwards. 

Yet, at no point are we more viscerally reminded of things coming to an end, than when we lose a loved one. For most of us in western society, death is entirely shocking when it hits close to home. It is quite normal to grow up subconsciously believing your parents will live forever, or at least always be there as you continue to mature. These pillars of strength and support in your life propped up by modern medical science can come unexpectedly crashing down during the times when we might need them most. As we subscribe to an ‘always on’ and ‘readily available’ society its easy to be distracted from the scarcity of time we might have with our loved ones, they’re only ever a Whatsapp away right? That is until death appears suddenly and unrelentingly in our lives to remind us that things are truly finite. 

There is a silver lining however. The limited nature of our time on this earth only makes it all the more valuable. We don’t respect the things we get for free, or the things we take for granted. And while we may take our time for granted for large swathes of our younger years, these startling moments of awareness are also reminders of how lucky we are to be able to have them in the first place. You can be equal parts sad that something has to come to an end, and grateful that it happened at all.

Alternatively, you can just accept that endings are as normal as new beginnings. The cycle of life is felt by all who exist on our planet, including the planet itself and the solar system in which it spins. There is a reason the majority of older people say they’re ready to go once they’ve hit a certain age, accepting that death is a part of life. The end can be a relief, a welcome visitor that brings rest and peace.

“There is always more after the ending. Always the next morning, and the next. Always changes, losses and gains. Always one step after the other. Until the one true ending that none of us can escape. But even that ending is only a small one, large as it looms for us. There is still the next morning for everyone else. For the vast majority of the rest of the universe that ending might as well not ever have happened. Every ending is an arbitrary one. Everything ending is from another angle, not really an ending.” - Anne Leckie