There was once a man who had finally learned something.
It wasn’t a particularly useful thing.
He couldn’t turn it into a career.
He couldn’t put it on a résumé.
He couldn’t even explain it very well.
But he knew it was true.
Nothing lasts forever.
He had spent a great deal of his life learning this in increasingly creative ways.
People came.
People went.
Places changed.
Bodies changed.
Ideas changed.
The things he thought would save him eventually became the things he had to learn how to release.
Even the things he loved were temporary.
Especially the things he loved.
Eventually he stopped being angry about this.
Mostly.
One day he found himself standing beside a great river.
The river was impossibly old.
Older than the man.
Older than the road behind him.
Older, perhaps, than the mountains.
It flowed onward without asking permission.
He watched it for a while.
Then he smiled.
Someone standing nearby asked him what he was thinking.
He considered giving a profound answer.
Instead he said:
“Just try and remember, nothing lasts forever.”
Then he dove into the river.
The water swallowed him immediately.
For a moment there was nothing.
Then somewhere downstream, a hand broke the surface.
Then a head.
Then a laugh.
He came up sputtering, grinning like an idiot, and looked around at whatever strange country the river had carried him into.
There were unfamiliar mountains.
Unfamiliar stars.
A road he had never seen before.
Probably trouble.
Definitely an adventure.
He laughed again.
And kept swimming.
Because perhaps that is what the river was trying to teach him all along.
Not that everything ends.
He already knew that.
But that knowing it doesn’t mean you have to stand on the shore.
You can love something temporary.
You can build something temporary.
You can become someone temporary.
You can lose it.
You can grieve it.
And when the next current catches you—
you can go.
The universe does not promise us permanence.
It offers us moments.
So take the moment.
Hold it carefully.
Then, when the river asks for it back,
let go.
There will be another shore.
There will be another story.
There will be another ridiculous thing to try.
And somewhere, just beneath all of it, the river will keep laughing.
Just try and remember.
Nothing lasts forever.
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