I remember well the last time I strolled along the streets of New York, glancing casually at the store windows that tempted my senses. A well-cut suiting jacket caught my eyes and left me with the taste of desire. With my professional eyes I scrutinized it thoughtfully. It would suit me well, I felt sure, and give me an air of confidence, of quiet distinction – just the thing I wanted for the business presentation I was scheduled to give the following month.
And now, a week later, locked down in my house in Italy, that little episode feels centuries ago. An eternity has passed since the moment I looked into the store window, imagining myself in a new power-suit in front of a crowd of critical business people.
There won’t be any business presentation for a long time, not with the new virus around. Unwillingly the business world with its meetings and marketing events is on hold now.
The flow of time has changed direction, and now it is carrying me towards an unknown future, through an unfamiliar path.
How alien this present is to me. How can I fill it with meaning? Sitting by my window, I look out in longing while I listen to the singing of a flock of birds on a tree. They are not afraid of meeting. They are telling me of something no longer here, of yesterday’s freedom that is now gone. The promises of the beautiful new jacket, which back then seemed so important and joyful, are insignificant now, completely moved to the background.
A sudden understanding strikes me powerfully: The passage of time! The words of the philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius echo in my mind: “Think often about the speed in which things pass by and disappear … the world is like a river in a never-ending flow…”
All is so transient, here for an instant and then gone. Those lively moments of the past have been replaced by the anguish of the present.
I feel the urge to defy this cosmic law of change, but I know I am powerless against it. I will have to come to terms with the new kind of moments that now fill my days, and who knows what kind of new beauty I might find in them…
Dreamily I recall my life plans that once seemed so promising, old potentials erased by time, opportunities that had never been given a chance to materialize. Through the loss of those possibilities I now come to appreciate what I have, what is already part of me.
The memory of the beautiful jacket I saw in this trendy Soho shop slowly slides into the obscurity of yesterday’s world.
And even now, as I am sitting by my window and remembering these moments, time keeps moving on, oblivious to my anxieties. Suffering today and laughing tomorrow, I am riding on the crest of the flow of time, which I am powerless to influence.
Marcus Aurelius (121-180 AD): A Stoic philosopher and Roman Emperor.
From his MEDITATIONS, Book V, section 23:
Think often about the speed in which things pass by and disappear, both natural things and artificial things. Because the material world is like a river in a never-ending flow, and the activities of things are in a constant change, and their causes work in infinite varieties, and there is almost nothing that stands still. And consider this, which is so near you: this endless emptiness of the past and of the future, in which all things disappear. Isn’t it foolish, then, to be proud about this kind of things or overwhelmed by them and make yourself miserable? Because they disturb you only for a time, and a short time.