We live in the flicker

[L]ike a running blaze on the plain, like a flash of lightning in the clouds. We live in the flicker—may it last as long as the old earth keeps rolling! But darkness was here yesterday. - Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad

Apparently, this expresses Marlowe's view of the ephemeral nature of civilization. I read the novel years ago, but was reminded of the quote when a friend sent a bereavement card after my dog was put to sleep.

It expresses my view of the ephemeral nature of mortality... and, perhaps, of identity. Each moment, I am thrown into the world. Yes, there is a past, but it isn't just a foreign country: the "me" who was there was someone else. Every moment. Periods of concentration can stretch the moment; periods of flow can make the sense of me irrelevant. Trying to establish who I am, as though the I were something continuous, is more than unsettling. It is disorienting.

The only think "I" carry with me is this changing body. That process of being-alive-as-a-body is constant. The body, better than the mind, tracks the time and the experiences. It (I) is me (really).

This is a burr on the base of the stem of a beech. I think of the burr, as I think of galls, as akin to non-fatal cancerous growths. They are places where the gene expression has altered, or been altered by the creature who has caused the gall to arise. You can find out about galls here and about burrs, or burls, here.

As it happens, these are, indeed, a form of cancer.