It’s only a dramatic sight when hits the atmosphere. Before that, a meteor travels silently through space, a cold rock.
That’s you.
Me too.
We may be made of different materials, humans versus eponymous meteor. Humans are…us. Meteor is….other. Chondrite. Iron ore. Chaotic breccia. Some damn ancient rock from space.
But humans and meteors, we’re both traveling. Most days are just like the day before, essentially traveling through irrelevant void: cold, dark, mostly alone.
Every time I go on a travel for a production gig, I wonder if it will be my last time in the field. Intellectually I know I have many useful years ahead of me. It certainly seems reasonable to imagine plenty of opportunities for future adventures. Nonetheless, I can’t help but be aware that my total number continues to tick down and down and there’s no way to stop the process.
I’m not talking about vacation trips here, or long weekends away, or even just days off when I can do what I please at home, but I might as well be referring to those things, too. Time drains like water from uneven surfaces, finding infinite cracks on its way to being gone.
One of these days I’m going to be on my final production assignment somewhere out in the world. I don’t know when. I don’t know if it will be a big, showy, substantial thing, or a small pipsqueak blip. I just know it’s coming. Like a meteor, I’ll have my final streak across the sky, a bright visible moment of drama that, if people catch a glimpse, may make them turn their heads.
It’s the same for the rock, and its two potential outcomes yield essentially the same result. If a meteor burns up in the atmosphere, it’s effectively gone. If it makes it through the atmosphere shrouded in a glowing high temperature plasma blaze and then crashes upon the ground below, its movement through the cosmos will be similarly final. Either way, there will be no more a’roving.
Point is, I try not to miss a minute of any one of these journeys, these experiences. I don’t know how many more there will be when I’ll hit my final trajectory. Most of the time our journeys, shared and private, are just ordinary days traveling through void. We do not remember most Tuesday afternoons. We do not usually think about what kind of sandwich we ate while standing at our kitchen counter in-between writing another e-mail about some dumb administrative task. We do, however, remember the time we packed a bag, made some lists, worked some plans, tried to get our heads screwed on straight, and then set out to do something. We remember the little bag of jelly beans that someone snuck in our carry-on with a sweet note. We remember feeling part of something beyond another day just floating.
There will be a final time. It may be the very next one that comes up, or it might even have already happened. Like the meteor, there are only a few possible outcomes, and they all effectively equal the same thing. Burn up in some planet’s atmosphere or crash to the surface of some stable gravitational object: the trip will end either way. Before that day, however, most time will likely be spent in silent travel through irrelevant void.
Here’s the point. See if you can shift the ratio. Make more days matter. Be intentional and pay attention, because when it all ends, it will be all over—and there’s no going back.