The sun begins to make its slow descent throught the sky. Shadows elongate and enunciate, creating a sort of mirror world, which imitates our own but is never fully tangible. As the light fades to ever cooler hues, bringing in an engulfing darkness pierced only by the light of men, we often will think to ourselves- the day is over. But what do we consider a day? At first, we often think of time, and its steady ebb and flow, onward, day after day. We think of periods within that flow, as in the day of Caesar or Lincoln. We think of the contrast between light and dark, day and night, both contained in the so-called solar day of which we thought first.
In my short life, I've only experienced about 6,000 days. Chances are, the number of days within that 6,000 that I actually remember run in just the hundreds. That is the very nature of the day. So short, so insignificant in the grand scheme of things individually, yet together adding up to something so large. They pass by like stock cars at Daytona, racing by you without giving a chance to collect your thoughts. Before you know it, you're almost 16 and it's 104 degrees outside and wasn't it just yesterday that you celebrated your 4th birthday in that blizzard with like, 4 feet of snow, and everybody walked forever through the streets to get there? You had a daydream once that you were still four, and you were trying to stay that way forever. But each dawn brought a new day, and you just kept getting older with each one. If you hadn't guessed yet, the you I refer to is me, and nowadays, I still do plenty of daydreaming. Every day of the week, I sit in class, thinking of the future and how it's going to be. But I must stay alert. The calendar flips through the days and months just as fast as ever, and any day could be the one for me to seize.
My day... I've won the day in the past. My short life has been full of triumphs. Making it to both the Arkansas and Virginia state geography bees, starting for the JV soccer team the last two years, having nothing but A's on my report card for as long as I can remember. Life hasn't exactly been devoid of failure, though. The geography bees were bittersweet, as I finished runner-up in my final year of eligibility. JV soccer isn't the best place to be going into your second-to-last year of high school. Still though, tomorrow's a new day, another chance to improve your lot. Just as so many great civilizations in the past had their heydays, I'll have mine. Whether brief but brilliant like Alexander the Great's Macedonia, or long-lasting and consistent like ancient China, history will hopefully repeat itself with me.
History... day... daeg... dhegh... back to even before civilization, the word day has been in use by humans, in some form. First developed in the language of the Indo-European people of the Black Sea and Asia Minor, the word spread throughout the Ancient world with their conquests. Ranging far and wide, around the world, derivatives of this word are used by hundreds of millions of people, from Jews in Israel to Germans in Berlin, militants in Afghanistan to politicians in Washington, soccer prospects in Brazil to mogul owners in Russia. Even with all the world's conflict, through history we find common roots.
Conflict... contrast... night and day... even the word day itself has conflict within it. Light and dark coincide and intermingle on fringes of the day as light, forming distinct boundaries within each day in time. The contrast is so commonly known that the phrase “night and day,” is often used to refer to anything that is definitively opposite. If we focus in on this cycle of day and night, we can see a pattern that emerges in thinking, that has rarely wavered for humans since the beginning of time. Day has been a time for work, activity, the time when people get things done. Night, a time of darkness, and often, evil, due to the nature of those who dwell in it: furtive, mysterious, unknown. As the days progressed and men were able to capture light more effectively, night became a sort of artificial day: while work still progressed in the natural light of day, people would continue activity even after calling it a day. Night became the time for fun, relaxation, cooling off after a long day. Outside the lights of civilization, it remains the same: why do you think little kids are still afraid of the dark? Without the artificial lights to make them feel safe until they are so tired they fall right asleep, they are left to ponder the dark and their presence within it. It is not the night they are afraid of, however: it's what they, and all humans, naturally associate with it.
...an engulfing darkness pierced only by the light of men, we often will think to ourselves, is this the last day? As our vision, the last sense we get when we are born, leaves us for the enthralls of the night, our mind is allowed to wander. It struggles to escape the body, flitting erratically between conscious and subconscious, jolting in and out with each small sensation, until finally it is released into a kind of nirvana, where it is free to move as it pleases without connection with reality. At the start of each day before, the mind, the soul, returns to the body and we awaken to a new day, another recurrence in the cycle of time. As those we have come to know and love arise with the light of day, our body remains in place. Yesterday had been our day. Our last.[right][left]
Home
