I was recently overtaken by the idea of impermanence.

A strange realization came to me whilst I leisurely strolled down the Floridian coastline. It was around midday and the sun beat down heavily on my exposed right shoulder. I walked with my eyes fixed on the sandy beach before me, scouring the expanse for geometric anomalies commonly known as shark’s teeth. As seen by an aerial drone flying overhead, I was a tiny man looking for tiny things, hopelessly unaware of the grand expanse that gave boundary to my existence.

I kept on this way for some while. From time to time, I would chase the small sandpipers. Despite their diet being comprised almost entirely of invertebrates found in wet sand, the tiny birds harbor an absolute aversion to water. I watched them absentmindedly as they niftily dodged in and out to the rhythm of the waves. A spitting image of myself at the time, the creatures would pause momentarily to shove their narrow beaks to the sand before sputtering off on stilt legs only moments ahead of the advancing waves.

It was during one of these bouts that the strange idea hit me broadside.

Everything feels so real, every memory, every moment of life. Yet, like the footprints I walked parallel to the lapping tides, all would be erased.

Feeling a sudden, crushing weariness descend upon me, I retreated to a nearby rock to sit. The sun had dipped considerably in the sky and a cool breeze started to wrest control from the overbearing midday heat. Prompted by revelations and darkening skies, I shed the guise of a carefree sandpiper. Neurons fired, synapses formed and dissolved; I took it upon myself to contemplate the nothingness that all my reality would become after making my vessel’s final journey.

It seemed very odd to me that the persistent flock of memories I shepherded, the continuity of my awareness, would cease to exist at a given time. Physicists teach that some finite amount of matter or energy cannot be spontaneously destroyed due to conservation, so I was perplexed by the notion that my mortal life, my perceived truth, could be any different.

Yet there is an undeniable realness to the permanence of death. Whatever comprises us: ego, memories, perception, our ability to change and be changed by the exterior world, all ceases to be. Only a husk of matter is left behind, and even it is eventually recycled into the world we once thought so separate from ourselves.

We are wiped away as if footprints in the sand, swept under by the inescapable torrent of time and chance.

Then I remembered the small pile of shark’s teeth occupying my pocket. Retrieving some, I was struck by their diversity. Some long, others short; some new and glossy, others worn by years of tumbling against the grainy sand. They were all in the process of returning to nothingness. I supposed a considerable portion of the sandy dunes I strolled was comprised of teeth that had already lost all discernible shape.

But these few I was selfishly saving from the tides. I had come resolved to collect and send many as mementos to friends in colder climates. Surprisingly, my existential revelation had done nothing to dampen my desire to complete this mission.

I stood once more and retraced my steps back to the crashing waves. Then, chasing a lengthening shadow in the dying light, I left more impermanent footprints on the sandy shore. Careful lest my feet should be submerged by the oncoming tide, I stopped to pick up another dislodged tooth.