IT IS a bright and chilly September morning. The soft morning light filters in, illuminating in pastel hues the heaps of readings, half-written papers, and odd stacks of folded laundry scattered haphazardly across my room. Midterm season is creeping in, and though I have class in a few hours, I do nothing. It can all wait, I think, turning over and going back to sleep.
Hours later, I step out of my last class for the day. It is nearly evening now. A cool breeze carries over, and a few crows caw in the treetops. Eventually, I lay in bed, sleepy and tired. Though I haven’t accomplished everything, there is tomorrow.
I repeat this cycle over the next few days, weeks, months. Nothing stays the same, of course—papers are written and classes are passed. However, in some way, nothing changes either. Sometimes, we feel like nothing has to. Cycles begin anew as we depend on them to do. In their own unique ways, things are as predictable and dependable upon the next sunrise.
The ancient Egyptians believed the sun to be a symbol of renewal, making the journey across the sky and through the underworld, defeating chaos, personified as a serpent, and being reborn to begin a new day. Eternal cycles like these were known to the Greeks as Ouroboros, the symbol of a snake—a different serpent—eating its own tail. Destruction and creation are merged into one.
Papers were written, lessons were crammed, and classes were passed. Life was as it was—as we thought it should have been—until it wasn’t. The snake bites its tail, the sun sets into the night, and suddenly, the cycle is broken.
Something ends, something begins. Now a few hundred kilometers away, I sit at my desk, cramming one of the many papers due in a few days. At home now, I hear the cacophonous calls of a flock of birds roosting in an old tree, as they usually do come dusk. My study dates have been replaced with productivity calls, and with my friends, I go over my online modules once more.
The serpent attempts to swallow the sun, and we are plunged into a generation of uncertainty. However, just as the snake nourishes itself on its own body, so does creation arise from destruction. There are a few ways in which we are powerless now, but staying passive is not one of them.
My friends and I reach out to one another, trying our best to make sure nobody is left behind. We talk about issues that matter, remind others to register as voters, and hope for the eventual return of as much of a sense of normalcy as is possible. In the disruption, we are called to solidarity, to strengthen our ties and prepare for the times to come.
Fresh eyes allow us to see what we could not before. We cannot relive or change the past. Instead, we can only take it apart to analyze in retrospect. Things we valued—now left in the past—or social issues previously left untouched all come together to help us demand a better future. A new cycle is reborn from the remnants of the old. It should not wait.
