2. Sand Castles, Made Of Sand

The trouble with sand castles is that they’re made of sand. I find it difficult to consider the idea of Action without also considering the idea of Permanence. After all, if you do a thing and then that thing is undone, then what was the point? There’s the rub.

I like the metaphor of a sand castle because a sand castle has no practical utility. A sand castle won’t shelter you from a storm. The value of building a sand castle is purely abstract. Any value gained from the act of building a sand castle comes in the form of the satisfaction of doing a thing. And, shortly after that thing has been done, reality will undo it. The futility of the action is baked into the core of the thing. It’s essential to the act. The reason building a sand castle can be fun (I surmise) is that it’s challenging to make something out of sand, and you know it won’t last so it doesn’t have to be perfect.

The thing is, everything is sand castles. Once your perspective reaches a certain scope it becomes painfully clear that nothing is permanent. That nothing can be. As a young boy, let’s say fifth or sixth grade, I learned about the heat death of the universe on a school trip. I remember thinking something along the lines of “Well great. Now I’ve got to live with this information.” All sand castles will be washed away by the sea. “Look upon my works, ye mighty”, etc., etc.

Imagine that the entirety of Time has been captured on one incredibly large VHS video tape. Forget about how. Consider one vast, cosmic VHS tape that contains all of the information from this reality. After you’re dead, after the sun is dead, as the stars slowly burn out across the universe, there would be a record of that one time you built a sand castle. The argument could be made that the value of doing a thing is that the thing was done. If you were to look at a recording of Time, your sand castle would be one of the things that happened during that recording. Of course, even in that case you are making a decision, consciously or unconsciously, to value the idea of having done a thing.

Why dwell on the heat death of the universe when considering doing a thing? The art of doing a thing lies in understanding the various parts involved in the process of creating a specific circumstance. You are one of those parts. Your motivation for doing a thing is a part. If you have decided to do a thing then it is useful to understand that the value of doing a thing is in the doing of the thing. No matter what the task, if you set out to do a thing with the idea that the act will win you some great reward then you have set yourself up for folly. Money is just a tool that facilitates the doing of things. But the value in doing a thing comes from your idea of it being valuable to have done the thing. Doing a thing does not in and of itself cause satisfaction. You set the parameters for your satisfaction. You define the rules of the game. No matter what project you undertake, you’re building sand castles. It’s possible to build incredible things out of sand, but you’re the only one deciding when the thing is built. The value of the game is in the playing.