Considering Importance.

Recently I said goodbye to somebody dear to me. Well, no, I didn’t actually say ‘goodbye’ as such. What I actually said was more along the lines of ‘I can be of little use to you. You have to let me go to wherever I’m going. Thanks for everything. Good luck.’ Something like that. But it amounts to goodbye, doesn’t it?

It was the intensity I couldn’t handle, you see, not at the moment. I’ve never had a problem with intensity before. In fact, I’ve usually been the one to generate most of it. But there are too many difficult currents trying to pull me down right now, too many distractions. The additional effort was too much.

And then I had a strange, sad dream, and realised that she was dearer to me than I knew. I started listening to a piece of gentle Baroque music that she’s fond of (I’m listening to it now, as a matter of fact.) I know that she believes in the power of thought, and I’ve wondered whether she’s calling out to me. How egotistical is that? Too egotistical, surely. Nobody of sound mind could ever regard me as important. I don’t think I even want to be important.

But now I feel uncertain, guilty even. I feel that I should go back, but how do you do that? I’ve never been one for going back.

*  *  *

I walked past the remains of the grand, now cut down and dead, ash tree at the top of the lane today. I thought how insignificant is the life of one tree in the context of earth’s long existence. So it is with the life of one person, one great war, or the sinking of a continent. The stage goes on and on, inviting you in, feeding and entertaining you, and then kicking you out again.