Permanent

“For nothing is truly complete until the day it is finally destroyed.” - Hero of Ages, Brandon Sanderson

Have you ever been a part of building something? Anything? Something touchable. Maybe constructing the Lego Death Star or Millennium Falcon or the Saturn V rocket. Creation is usually hard and oddly permanent. Especially when you create something digitally. A piece of writing on the internet or a photograph taken years ago. With every moment we live, with every decision we made, we everything new we create, we wrought something new into this world. It is rarely temporary.

That is why giving your best is important. When you do something with your full heart and soul, you bring into the world something that lasts a long time. The current societal landscape is obsessed with lifetime-subscription. Nothing is ever sold or bought to last forever. Everything we use: toiletries, electronics, health-care products, food and drinks. It is all a subscription. These aren’t including actual subscriptions: from Netflix to gym memberships. The weird thing though still is that while all of this is temporary; art is not. Art in a way is permanent because if it stands the test of time, it is capable of affecting the present and future alike.

Years ago, Giovanni made paintings that people still admire. Even when things seem ordinary, they can be permanent. When you go to any small town and there is an old statue that has now become a historical landmark. Something that just happened to have stood in squares for a few hundred years. What becomes permanent is out of your control. Something that is a passing thought might lead to change in your life and others. The people who gave their life building the pyramids had no idea how many people would touch the bricks they put into place. The builders of the Eiffel tower may not be able to comprehend the appeal of a structure in romance. One can argue about the permanency on a cosmic timescale but then, but then even the universe is not permanent.

While watching through windows in trains, I’ve come across many man-made objects permanent structures. Bridges, piazzas, statues, houses, and even random walls. Old things have value because they’ve stood the test of time. That’s the thing we should remember whenever we create I suppose: we do not know the lifetime of our creation so we should put in effort mixed with love, blood mixed in with sweat, sometimes things won’t last a lifetime but sometimes; through magic or chance - they just might. That’s why it is said: “Do more of what you love”.

My thoughts, my being, my life is based off this consumer subscription culture. I want the next season of Firefly. I am programmed to believe there will be the next Marvel movie. I do not judge anything by what it is, but how it can be made into a subscription that I can pay for. More. Extra. Very. Next. All phrases I overuse because I see them everywhere. Would you like extra fries? Can I get extra napkins? With even more new shows. More new features. Higher pixel density. Never settle.

Wow. The world contains some magical and wonderful technology. Yet, it sucks at being able to create anything to last a lifetime. No wonder we are fucking with the planet. We are made to believe there will be another. Unfortunately, there won’t be. So much of our life is a subscription package and yet, the things that should be permanent are treated as replaceable. Friends, family, the planet, the wildlife.

Part of why I write this is because I am living in the medieval town of Montepulciano where most structures are from 14th century. Still here for me.