Reverse Ecclesiastes: Everything is fascinating, more than one can say!

🌚 New Moon Poem

In high school, I got an nihilist thrill from the two opening stanzas of Ecclesiastes. Years later, telling my three-month-old about our beautiful, startling world, I wanted an inverse.

Nothing against nihilism! Sometimes it’s all we can muster. I’ve learned to accept hopelessness. And yeah, maybe it all ends with a slow fade, scattered particles drifting, current universe lifespan unnoticed by the ticking of that clock, until one-by-one opposite charges all find each other and annihilate. Go ahead and stare that abyss in the eyes. Let it look back into you. Maybe the project of survival is just the swerve of atoms in an insouciant void. Maybe that’s a story that can even bring you comfort, depending on where you’re at.

But also, maybe every black hole is a new universe. Maybe our universe has already spawned 40,000,000,000,000,000,000 babies, each of which is in the process of spawning its own.

Maybe we’re really just starting to learn about this universe, and there’s still so much to discover.

Regardless, right now, there are trees and clouds and stars above you. Fungal synapses firing below. Wonders innumerable within your own body. There are beings performing breathtaking acts of self-sacrifice. New eyes opening. New hearts beating. Webs of care and reciprocity to welcome your unique contributions. Communities in which to participate. Causes to further. Worlds to author. Branching to be done.

Look!

"Meaningful, meaningful!"
   says the teacher.
"Profoundly meaningful!
   Everything is meaningful."

Look what humanity has done
   by all our labor at which we toil under the sun!
Generations build on generations past,
   leaving marks on the Earth that last forever.
The sun rises and the sun sets,
   then dances back to where it rises.
The wind blows to the south,
   then turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
   ever singing on its course.
All streams flow into the sea,
   and the sea is never full!
To the place the streams come from,
   to there they return again.
Everything is fascinating,
   more than one can say.
The eye never loses the joy of seeing,
   nor the ear the thrill of hearing.
What has been need not be again;
   what has been done can be reimagined;
   there is so much that's new under the sun!
There is so much of which one can say,
   "Look, this is something new!"
We don't know much of long ago,
   we're just beginning to uncover ancient times.
Let us learn more of former generations;
   and for all those that are yet to come,
   let us be remembered
   as good ancestors.