Finally the Fall

If not for our impending mortality, would we ever accomplish anything?  If we didn't know that we were going to die, would we even try to do great things in this world, or would we watch Netflix and eat Krispy Kremes and put everything off for one of our numberless tomorrows, procrastinating away eternity?  People want to leave their mark in the world, so they write books, and build buildings, and spawn offspring to carry on their bloodlines.  At the very least, they grasp at eternal memory with a long-lasting stone marker to attest to the fact that they once lived.  A name, some dates, perhaps even one of our life's relationships etched into the stone, "mother," "father," "beloved son."  It's how we earthbound mortals clamor for some sense of immortality.  But the lovely fall is setting in around us, reminding us of impermanence.  October is here at last, telling us that we too shall pass.  We too will go the way of all things: the leaves, the grass, the snows of winters past.  As the ancient poet Lucretius says:

Not lost, but disunited.  Life lives on!
It is the lives, the lives, the lives that die.

Oh, how I love the fall.