You are impermanent.
Or had you forgotten,
O ambitious pedestrian?

Your footsteps will not be long remembered on this earth.
Surely the watery waves of time must tell you this--
Each step, washed away only moments later.

Dry land is no better--
The shifting sands of the seasons do not allow you to make an impression.

I commend you, though,
O foolhardy serf.
Your earnestness does not go unnoticed,
Unappreciated though it may be.

You try to leave your indelible mark,
But you are nothing in an expansive sea of transient existence.
You are worthless.
Oblivion will eventually consume us all,
And there will not exist anything even remotely capable of immortalizing us in their memories.

Why, then, do you try,
O striving sapling?
Is the thought that you are meaningless too great to bear?
Do you press on in denial?

Or do you persist in spite of the obvious facts against you?
There would be something oddly commendable in this, I grant you.

Still, I must ask--
Four generations from now, will your family remember your name?
Will your great-great-grandkids know anything about you?
What legacy will you leave that endures?

Or is a temporal legacy just as meaningful as an enduring one?
History would say otherwise.
(We recall the Lincolns and the Mandelas of the world, not the John Smiths, after all).

But who am I to judge any one legacy any more or less great than another?
Who are you to listen to me?
Who are we to care?

Better not to, I suppose.
Better to do as much as we can with what precious little we are given.
Better to press on than to give in.

I commend you,
O inspirational being.

You do matter.

If you did not,
Why would you be here?