Here's the song, for those sad people who have never heard it:
First, let me say that I think the music itself, especially the violin and the sound of the singer's voice, is haunting and moving. It feels important, like it cuts right to the heart of what it is to be human and to be alive, and I would be drawn in to believing almost anything set to this music. But I think an analysis of the lyrics with some personal notes about my personality will back up what the music makes me feel.
First, a thing or two about me. On the Myers-Brigg test, I score a pretty strong P. This means that I like to live without a lot of structure or planning or rules and that I can take whatever kinds of experiences that come to me without getting too ruffled. I don't love permanence; I prefer things that are transitory and ephemeral. That alone may make the difference in how Aaron and I see this song. The idea of things passing away is lovely and bittersweet for me, promising loss but also the empty space where new things can happen. The idea of things passing away is just loss for him. He likes to put things in a proper order and for them to stay that way.
The song begins:
I close my eyes
Only for a moment and the moment's gone
All my dreams
Pass before my eyes a curiosity
Dust in the wind
All they are is dust in the wind
It's true that moments pass away and don't last, no matter how much people might want them to. The idea that we miss things when our eyes are closed is very powerful to me. Because our lives are so short and because we and all of our dreams will be nothing but dust after this short life, it's a crime to look away from the things we value even for a moment.
Same old song
Just a drop of water in an endless sea
All we do
Crumbles to the ground though we refuse to see
Dust in the wind
All we are is dust in the wind
Rather than feeling unimportant and forgotten because our short lives are just a tiny part of human history and of the history of the world, I choose to feel connected. To be a drop of water in a sea of achievement, love, passion, and all the glories of humanity, to be a drop of water in the sea of natural history, to have a place in the movement of evolution, is to be connected with all the meaning people have created, to be a part of the nature and its cycles. How could those things be unimportant?
Aaron sees hopelessness and futility in the idea that all the works of humankind crumble in the end. I don't. I think of the crumbled civilizations of the past, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, and even the fictional Camelot and Atlantis, and I cannot feel that they were futile. They learned; they built; they invented; they wrote. But they crumbled, and though this is sad, it is a reminder for me to enjoy the learning and building and inventing and writing and the products of all these now. Nothing in human life is permanent, and so I have to live in the moment with my eyes open, sucking the marrow out of life, knowing that things do not last forever. Refusing to see that my life now and the civilization that I love are just as fleeting as the Egyptians or the Greeks would prevent me from appreciating them fully right now.
Now don't hang on
Nothing lasts forever but the Earth and Sky
It slips away
And all your money won't another minute buy
Dust in the wind
All we are is dust in the wind
All we are is dust in the wind
Dust in the wind
Everything is dust in the wind
Everything is dust in the wind
Futility doesn't lie in the fact that things don't last forever; it lies in trying to cling to things that are passing away, in not facing the bittersweet reality of impermanence. Staying alive, but in an unending state of pain and misery; continuing a relationship that is no longer fulfilling; and holding stubbornly to an old dream that one has outgrown, these are the kinds of hanging on that the song cautions against, hanging on and refusing to see that nothing lasts forever. And finally, the song reminds us that living life and pursuing values are primary, that they end someday, and that money (and I might include fame and power and any other byproduct of value pursuit) cannot do away with mortality. In the end, we will all be dust, and by embracing the reality of the impermanence of human life, we can pursue values with all the fervor that limited time creates.
When I've done something that I wish I had done differently and when I am experiencing troubles or stress or sadness, this song reminds me that all things change, all things rise and then fall, all this pass away. I can look forward to a future that is not the same. It will be worse in some ways, no doubt, loss is a part of human life. But in other ways the future will be better. I like the idea that for good or bad, things change, and life will never become stagnant or boring.
I'd be interested to know how many of you see the song my way and how many think that Aaron reads it correctly as nihilistic. I'd also love to know if other people who are Myers-Brigg Ps see it my way. Is there a connection between my love of change and my dislike of much order and my reading of this song? Let me know what you think.
