There is a saying or expression that sort of goes like this ‘a flame that burns twice as bright burns twice as fast’.  In essence this means that you cannot have it both ways, the things that seem to be bright, that are larger than life itself, that seem too good to be true, will not last for long, sooner or later they will end.  In some ways it makes it almost acceptable to ‘take things slow’ so that they will last longer.  We seem to live in a fear of the possibility of losing those things that we hold dear if we try to cherish them too much

However, in the physical world, although this principal is relatively sound in most cases there is one huge example that defies this principle.  The sun, our star, is the most intense flame we can ever get in this solar system, it is the brightest object in our heavens, yet it will far outlive everything else in this solar system and when it eventually dies will probably become the brightest of all things imaginable before it collapses and destroys itself.

So what do we learn from this.  Well we can either play things safe and take things slow, savouring every gentle moment for what it is, or we can burn so brightly that we consume everything around us, bending the universe to our will.

But definitely no half measures

At the moment I want to burn

Bright Eyes – by Simon and Garfunkel

Is it a kind of dream,
Floating out on the tide,
Following the river of death downstream?
Oh, is it a dream?

There’s a fog along the horizon,
A strange glow in the sky,
And nobody seems to know where you go,
And what does it mean?
Oh, is it a dream?

Bright eyes,
Burning like fire.
Bright eyes,
How can you close and fail
How can the light that burned so brightly
Suddenly burn so pale?
Bright eyes.

Is it a kind of shadow,
Reaching into the night,
Wandering over the hills unseen,
Or is it a dream?

There’s a high wind in the trees,
A cold sound in the air,
And nobody ever knows when you go,
And where do you start,
Oh, into the dark.

Bright eyes,
burning like fire.
Bright eyes,
how can you close and fail
How can the light that burned so brightly
Suddenly burn so pale?
Bright eyes.

Bright eyes,
burning like fire.
Bright eyes,
how can you close and fail
How can the light that burned so brightly
Suddenly burn so pale?
Bright eyes.

G (burning brightly)