When love is working, we want it to last, of course, forever.
It isn't enough that it should have been nice today and that we've got some plans for tomorrow.
We beg the lover to promise that they're going to be with us until the end.
A dog can be happy in the present moment.
We aren't satisfied until we've secured the next half-century.
We can read this same demented longing for permanence in the histories of whole nations and peoples.
It's why we build arches, consecrate temples, write treaties in gold, put up statues to generals, saying to ourselves in the future, in a fact, we want to and will be always loyal till the final hour of the final day.
The difficulty in all this is that we're largely made of water.
Most bits of us at a cellular level weren't here five years ago and won't be here in another five.
Everything is in motion.
