“What are you afraid of?” he asks her.
She doesn’t know but will say something like spiders or social ostracism.
And he relents.
“Obscurity.”
“But that’s what you’ll always return to,” says I. “Even after a hero’s journey.”
“You’ll always return to nothing.
And there is no such thing as legacy.
Adulation, respect and immortal service are only for the obsessed who remain.
The artist – the Shakespeare, the Joyce, the Mozart – enjoys none of it.
He dies and evaporates.
A small group obsesses.
A larger group can answer trivia questions about the artist.
But even those groups get erased, and the artist dies anew.
Best to wipe the gum from the eyes and enjoy the dazzle of now.
Understand oblivion and do absurd things now.
Stare at the truth. Now.
Not saving for some future then.
Now.”