I love autumn. I used to think its ambience drew me in: the cable-knits, cider donuts, crackled leaves. Now, however, as we wrestle with inexhaustible evolution, as finals loom over us, and time ebbs like water from our wearied hands, Fall has become so much more. Fall reminds us we are finite. Like the rotten leaves– like willows and birds and rivers –we too are mortal. And there is innate unification in this shared fate.
In a beautiful brew of sound (from millennia-old mate calls to Microsoft Windows), stills, verse and modern mechanics, Villanova’s Communication PhD candidate Jake Metzger examined mankind’s subversive demolition of this dualism between life and death.
So often, we strive to be infinite. We are entranced with this venerated bloom: the innovation, urbanization, men in corner offices who fritter finite time to inflate their inordinate checks. Like lurid lilies in mild autumn, another new and lustrous item diverts us from the rotten world. And in our endeavor to be infinite, (whether via Botox, fillers, or floods of fast-fashion to drown our firm need for more), we accelerate the corrosion. We tarnish the world with our immoderation like children and their caramel-coated molars.
So? If we have overridden dualism, if we have falsified flowers to soothe us, who cares? I think one of the more calamitous “advancements” humans have made is this detached divide from the natural world. Even as loftier animals, more civilized than the birds and trees, we too are mortal. We can disdain this truth, claiming we are more than a mere “combination of sodium, potassium and carbon” redistributed over time. Still we (us, birds, trees) come from dust, and to dust we shall return.
As mentioned before, I love autumn. I love how the leaves transform and break down with no shame, how their crunches echo, voices unafraid of being heard. Each fall, we are reminded of our finitude. Even more so, how to embrace our finitude. Find armistice in the transience: a formal invitation to leave the Botox and online orders behind.
In our modern world, saturated with the screeches of an ever-turning hamster wheel, a return to nature sounds absurd. How can we overcome the obstinate noise: the new devices, another controversial news headliner, a new diversion from our true ambition? In truth, as Jake elucidated with a collection of sound waves, there is no silence. There never will be. From the mother and calf whales’ bellows to the kauai oo bird’s mate calls, to running rivers, crunching leaves, sitcom laugh tracks and Netflix’s resonate introduction, we will never escape the music.
Our time here is finite. We will never be liberated from the noise, from the siren sound to find eternal life. Still, I urge: do not become so infatuated with the fake flowers, with the melodies of mechanization. Remember: we too are mortal. If we burn the world with selfish desire, we, too, will burn.
So please, embrace finitude. Learn to love the autumn. Our time is too invaluable to waste in a search for more.
