Ephemera

I was listening to a band recently, Oi Va Voi. With a name like that, apparently some Jewish link. They produced a mere couple of albums and vanished without trace. Some may consider that a good thing, depends on your musical taste. More conceptually to the point is their transience. Stuff that exists, hangs around a while and then disappears back into the void. Music is one example, fashion another. But Nature is full of them; the bloom of a flower, the fragile windblown butterfly. Or, the life of an adult mayfly, the archetypical example of ephemeron. Imagine, just 24 hours - maturing from larva, mating and death. How intense a life is that? Talk about pressure - only a few short hours to find a mate, find a site, perpetuate a species. We humans have it so easy by comparison. Though I can think of a few people who might find the idea of a one night stand very appealing, knowing will be the only one ever may not be so great.

Does anthropomorphising the life of a mayfly make any sense? Measuring their lives by our timescales? What about mayflies as a species, how old are they. They pre-date humans by a good margin with a fossil record back into the Cretaceous period. With a lifecycle so short they evolve perfectly to their environment.  And so, whatever it is they do, however it is they live and die, it certainly works for them. Ephemera - it is not the thing and its passing, but what it signifies; change & adaptability. 'The one thing constant in life is change’ ; Francois de le Rochfoucauld; ephemera are the embodiment of that change. Maybe then briefly mourn their passing beauty, but embrace the circumstances that enabled it.