This much is true: nothing stays the same

I have just begun reading The Swerve, by Stephen Greenblatt. Though I've barely scratched the surface, this is already looking to be a very intriguing read.

The book explores Lucretius's On the Nature of Things, (De rerum natura), one of the most influential pieces of literature in history. At the core of the poem is a theory for understanding our world, as posited by Lucretius. He stated that the stuff of the universe is an infinite number of atoms moving randomly through space, like specks of dust in the sunlight. They collide, they hook together, they form complex structures, they break apart, in a ceaseless cycle of creation and destruction.

So, when you look up at the night sky (or even down at the mud, and rocks, and leaves), and marvel at the beauty of the stars, you are not seeing the "handiwork of the gods". You are seeing the same material of which you and I are a part of and from whose elements you are made. There is no intelligent design, no master plan. All things evolved over vast stretches of time. Evolution is random, but in the case of living organisms, it follows the principle of natural selection. Human beings should accept the fact that they, and all things they encounter, are transitory.

It is amazing to think this was articulated in a work written over two thousand years ago, and not as a dry scientific tome, but as a piece of literature richly filled with a poet's vision and sense of wonder!

I must stop now so I can get back to reading this book, a Christmas gift to me from Richard (thank you, again). I'll end with an example used by author Stephen Greenblatt to illustrate Lucretius's "affirmation of vitality", where in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, the grave does not swallow up the lovers, but rather launches them into the future as an embodiment of their love. Juliet, in essence, gets her wish that after death, night should take Romeo:

. . . and cut him out in little stars
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night.