Tears in Rain

St. Thomas Aquinas reportedly had some sort of mystical experience that led him to stop writing his uncompleted Summa Theologica. When asked why he had stopped , he reportedly said, “I can write no more. I have seen things that make my writings like straw.”

I am not a brilliant writer or theologian, but I sometimes think the same notion applies to what I read. I have a thirst to read; I have set goals. I am perhaps wiser and richer because of all I read. But at some point, I will die, and all that I have read, all that knowledge, will be so much straw.

I am reminded of the scene in the movie Blade Runner when the replicant Roy Batty reflects on what will be lost when he dies.

“I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.”

When I die, the works of Shakespeare and Dickens and Frost and so many other great writers will remain waiting for readers, but the fires they kindled in my mind will be gone. 

The only way for me to leave more than tears in rain is for me  to share what I have learned in some way. I did that as a teacher, and I can do so as I write in this blog and on social media. And I can turn some of those ideas into essays/stories/poems of my own. I would be nice to know that something I've written will be read long after I'm dead.

I'm hoping not all of it will be lost, and not just be tears in rain.

Pax et bonum