I often think about Vanitas paintings when I walk on the beach. “Huh?,” you say, what do 17th century Dutch or Flemish works of art have to do with the wide expanse of the Pacific Ocean? Dark interiors compared to the brightest of skies? Still Lifes crammed with objects compared to the endless seascape with barely a visual anchor?

For me, they both invite meditation on time.

Vanitas paintings are filled with worldly goods and pleasures, allusions to beauty, knowledge, power, riches, you name it, all gorgeously rendered. But they inevitably contain a warning that these things are fleeting by suggesting temporal instability. It is not just the addition of skulls, or wilted flowers that directly allude to death. Painters have a whole bag of tricks to make things feel momentary: precarious stacking, objects extending over edges, toppled glassware, spoilt fruit, diagonal directional light that points to the vicinity of darkness, soon to arrive.

The Latin word vanitas translates as emptiness, or worthlessness, as well as vanity. It was the chosen translation of the biblical Ecclesiastes’ lament: Vanity! All is vanity! The Hebrew term is hevel, which has many meanings, ranging from breath to insubstantiality to impermanence to futility and even absurdity. The paintings impart the warning of too much pride, too much focus on wealth or status, since our existence is fleeting. They hint at the need to find a purpose in life, rather than focus on accumulation, without denying that there is beauty to be found in objects. (Abel, killed by his brother Cain, by the way, is called Hevel in Hebrew. The first mortality in the Torah, ripped out of life quite young.)

Pieter Claesz Vanitas-Stillleben mit Selbstbildnis c. 1628) The skull is hidden in the corner….

So what does the beach got to do with it? I see the same juxtapositions: overwhelming beauty, a sense of power and energy delivered not by riches but by the awe inspiring waves, the illusion of freedom if we could just fly off or find the right boat to bring us to better shores – all countered with inevitable reminders of mortality.

Parts of dead crabs, dried out mussels, carcasses of birds, or fish, or sea lions.

In this week’s encounter, a fawn that was unable to escape the sneaker waves.

Furthermore, a feeling of smallness against the unending horizon, the wind that buffets you, the waves that crash against the various features of the shore line. Do we matter at all, is there a purpose to our life?

As per usual, Ursula LeGuin comes to the rescue. Here is and excerpt from her 1975 essay “Science Fiction and Mrs. Brown,” later included in The Language of the Night: Essays on Writing, Science Fiction, and Fantasy 

“What good are all the objects in the universe, if there is no subject? It isn’t that mankind is all that important. I don’t think that Man is the measure of all things, or even of very many things. I don’t think Man is the end or culmination of anything, and certainly not the center of anything. What we are, who we are, and where we are going, I do not know, nor do I believe anybody who says he knows, except, possibly, Beethoven, in the last movement of the last symphony. All I know is that we are here, and that we are aware of the fact, and that it behooves us to be aware — to pay heed. For we are not objects. That is essential… And with us, nature, the great Object, its tirelessly burning suns, its turning galaxies and planets, its rocks, seas, fish and ferns and fir trees and little furry animals, all have become, also, subjects. As we are part of them, so they are part of us. Bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh. We are their consciousness.”

We have awareness and we can choose to pay attention. As subjects we have agency and can invite the relevant objects into our circle of protection. As subjects we can make choices, we can adopt or reject moral codes, lend our support to deserving causes. The fleetingness of time is less of a worry, in my mind, if the time we have is filled with purpose.

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I learned the meaning of another ancient word this week as well. Another memorable essay by John Ganz (highly recommended read, not too long,) referred to Nemesis. I had known it as the name of a Greek Goddess who restored balance (pursuing justice against the bad guys.) She exerts divine retribution, true to the meaning of her name, to give what is due. The target is usually hubris or arrogance. I now learned that nemesis is also a disposition, ” a feeling of offended justice.” It is an ethical emotion, the desire to see justice restored. Let us pay heed to this: rather than demanding revenge and retribution against those who harmed the world or our country, let us be instead guided by nemesis: a desire to restore justice, balance, and order. Accountability is part of that.

Music today: Beethoven’s 9th, Finale.