---
title: Memento Mori
date: 2026-03-17
abstract: The power of vanitas through vanity, herein serving to emanate motivation and tranquility.
tags: [miscellany]
js: scripts/memento-mori.js
---

<figure class="poem-excerpt">
<blockquote>
<p>Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,<br>
So do our minutes hasten to their end;<br>
Each changing place with that which goes before,<br>
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.</p>
</blockquote>
<figcaption><a href="/poetry/sonnet-60.html">Sonnet 60</a> — William Shakespeare</figcaption>
</figure>

<div id="weeks-grid-wrapper"></div>


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---
## Who is a website for?

::: dropcap 
It is a trick question. A website (at least, of the personal website type) is created and, in particular, shared with the world in the hopes that someone else will derive utility from it, whether that utility is diversion, knowledge, or something else. If I had something to say to myself, creating a website for it would be overkill, wouldn't it?
:::

Yes and no, if you ask me. I believe in the power of transparency and honesty. If I am going to endeavor to accomplish something, making my attempt in the public eye is an excellent motivator and pushes me to be consistent. Similarly, if I have something that I feel is important to me, such as the content of this page, then I have yet to see a reason why I should not incorporate it into the website. Yes, the website is primarily a place for me to share works that I expressly create with the intent of sharing, but I have yet to see *any* detriment to additionally sharing works that I expressly create for my own consumption. I lose nothing, and have the possibility of gaining *something*, so this seems to me to be an instantiation of [Pascal's Wager](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_wager). 

## Applied Vanitas

![Dante and Beatrice gaze upon the highest heaven.](/images/canto31.jpg "Gustav Doré - Paradiso, Canto 31")

::: dropcap
Time passes regardless of our wishes, our intentions, our apprehensions. That is perhaps the most beautifully profound fact of our existence, and one that therefore I view with gratitude. 
:::

MANY ARTISTS AND THINKERS ALIKE HAVE, OVER CENTURIES, TRIED [TO]{.smallcaps} ENCAPSULATE THIS BEAUTIFUL PROFUNDITY THROUGH [*Vanitas*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanitas)^[Spanish Wikipedia has a far more detailed and preferable entry concerning *Vanitas*. For those who speak Spanish, [see here](https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanitas)] I do not think that my words can do this subject terrible justice, so rather than trying to encapsulate the potent nature of the subject myself, I will only speak here about what it means to me, interspersing my remarks with art of various forms for us to appreciate.

### My Creative Works

::: {.score-fragment score-name="Bassoon Concerto, II (2025-2026)" score-caption="A solo bassoon excerpt from my 2025-2026 Bassoon Concerto."}
![](scores/bsn.svg)
:::
