Impermanence

My iPod can hold a vast number of songs in its 32 GB. I've been adding to the music on my computer for years, adding any song that I happen to hear on the radio and like, sometimes downloading entire albums because I like one or two songs from it. Even after all of this, my iPod is in no danger of being full at any point in the immediate future. And if it were, I could buy the 160GB model and spend a lifetime filling that up. What all of this has led to is the convenience of listening to pretty much any song I want, any time I want. Every song I've ever liked, no waiting. Similarly, TiVo records programs I can watch later and, failing that, there's always the Internet to make available any missed episode of House or Lost. Shows that barely warranted reruns twenty years ago are now available on DVD so you, too, can watch "Roseanne" and "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" anytime you like.

This isn't a rant, mind you. I like this availability. It's great not having to plan an evening around the airing of a TV show. As for my iPod ... well, it's tough loving something that can never love me back, but I'll get by. But with all of this anytime, anywhere availability, I often find myself fascinated by the idea of impermanence. There's something very exciting about things that won't last forever, that I cannot record and take with me.

Food is one example. The old maxim about having your cake and eating it, too, is true of all things tasty. Without getting too graphic, any money you spend on good food is all flushed down the drain the long run- but in the short run, in that infinitesimal fraction of your life you spent eating that meal, it was worth every penny. Plus gratuity.

I stepped outside this past February weekend into an unusually warm breeze, part of Illinois' tantalizing, schizophrenic game of peek-a-boo we call "weather". It was wonderful, but what excited me most was the knowledge that it wouldn't last; I enjoyed it more because I knew it would be gone soon. That kind of now-or-never excitement can only exist when there's no way to record or store except for memory.