Ten Years Gone/What Endures

Photo from the "Temples of the Church" website for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

My wife and I will have been married for nine years this summer.  This Friday will mark the tenth anniversary of the day we met, which is easily one of the best days of my life.  As a huge Led Zeppelin fan, any kind of ten year anniversary makes me think of their song “Ten Years Gone”.  The song’s title immediately makes me think of the passing of time, specifically a decade, and how much can, and often does, change in that time period.

The song itself is interesting as it was originally composed by Jimmy Page as an instrumental track, with Robert Plant later adding lyrics.  Robert Plant’s lyrics were dedicated to an old girlfriend who ten years earlier had given him an ultimatum that he had to choose between her or “his fans”.  Robert Plant admits that he didn’t really have any fans at the time of the ultimatum and that the girlfriend used that term to refer to his musical pursuits.

The substance of Led Zeppelin’s “Ten Years Gone” essentially deals with loss and is a kind of reflective piece about the ten years that have passed.  One could easily compare this to ten years passing following some kind of tragedy or other seminal event.  Thinking of the song, and my own approaching ten year anniversary, has caused me to pause and think about the kinds of things, such as my relationship with my wife, that endure in life and in this world.

Something that immediately comes to mind when I think about this sort of thing is the unfortunate fact that many of the things that seem so important now, simply don’t last or are really not important.  The first thing that comes to mind in this day and age that would fit that description is social media.  In the end it won’t matter at all how many “likes” someone received on a post or a profile or how many subscribers they had.  However, it seems that at the moment this sort of thing is of monumental importance for a significant number of people.

This is somewhat understandable as some people actually make a living this way, I believe the term for that kind of profession is “Influencer”, but that brings up another thing that seems important now but doesn’t endure.  It is important to have a profession and earn a living, but when all is said and done it won’t matter how much time someone spent at work or what professional titles they held.  I remember attending my Grandpa’s funeral several years ago and being struck at how small the casket appeared to be.  This really brought home to me that when this life is over, it doesn’t matter if someone was the richest man in the world, we are truly brought down to the dust.

When thinking about this situation at the end of life, I often think of the warning about using all of one’s effort to acquire material wealth that is often summed up as “you can’t take it with you”.  This makes me wonder what one can take with them after this life.  I acknowledge that that question will get into Philosophical, often Theological, territory and that different people will have different beliefs.  However, given that material goods can be stolen or repossessed, it is worth considering what can be attained in mortality that can’t be taken away.

I enjoyed the 2002 film adaptation of the classic Alexandre Dumas novel “The Count of Monte Cristo” starring Jim Caviezel.  There is a part in the movie where the Edmund character receives a surprise visit from a fellow prisoner attempting to dig a tunnel out of their common prison.  After exchanging some pleasantries, Edmund’s new friend offers him something he describes as priceless in return for helping him dig his tunnel.  Edmund figures that his friend is offering him his freedom, but he is corrected after being reminded that freedom can be taken away.  His friend offers him knowledge, which can never be taken away once gained.

It makes me sad today that the pursuit of real knowledge seems to be widely either abandoned, or replaced with simply wanting to only seek out material conforming with an already present belief, erroneous though it may be.  Knowledge truly is enduring, but people need to be careful to not submit to being spoonfed material generated by some kind of algorithm and taking it as fact.  True knowledge needs to be sought after and gained, while always ensuring that it is acquired from legitimate sources.

Thinking about things that endure also makes me think of fads.  The Oxford English Dictionary defines a fad as “an intense and widely shared enthusiasm for something, especially one that is short-lived and without basis in the object’s qualities; a craze”.  Anyone can think of an assortment of fads that have come and gone during their lifetime.  Being born in 1982 and having a lifelong love for music and movies, a lot of the fads I think of from my lifetime fall into those categories.

There is a YouTube channel called Epic Rap Battles of History (ERB) where actors portray two well-known individuals, one is often a historical figure and the other a modern celebrity, having a battle rap where each individual claims that they are better than the other one.  One of these videos pits the legendary composer Mozart against the Electronic Music Artist known as Skrillex.  The main argument that Skrillex gives is that he has more success in his lifetime than Mozart ever did, but Mozart counters with the fact that he is revered centuries after his death and that Skrillex will be forgotten in his own lifetime.

This debate brings up something interesting when thinking about what endures in music by bringing up that some music that is successful when it is initially released will not endure far beyond that period while some music that isn’t even very successful when first released will endure.  It is a rare occasion when music will be both popular on its initial release and revered long afterwards.  A few examples of this that I can readily think of are the aforementioned Led Zeppelin as well as The Beatles along with Nirvana and other groups from the Grunge/Alt Rock period of the early to mid-nineties.

The trend of high performers not necessarily being classics, and vice versa, might be even more prevalent with movies.  This is so common in movies that a unique term, “Cult Classic”, is used to describe a film that doesn’t perform well on its initial release but goes on to gain a dedicated fan base and endure as a favorite, often for decades.  Some of my favorite movies, such as “The Princess Bride” and “The Big Lebowski”, fall into this category.  A more recent example of this is the trend of Disney remaking several of its classic animated features as live-action movies.  Several of the live-action remakes have performed well at the box office, but let’s be honest, given the choice, how many families or individuals will watch the live-action version over its animated counterpart?

As wonderful as I think music and movies are, I find that two things that endure more are values and personal relationships.  While values can vary between different individuals or groups, simply having them is something enduring in and of itself.  Some values extend beyond cultures or creeds, pretty much any individual or group can agree on the principles espoused in The Ten Commandments and especially in the concept of “do unto others as you would have others do unto you” commonly known as The Golden Rule.

I mentioned my Grandpa’s funeral earlier and how seeing him reduced to a casket reminded me of, and still causes me to contemplate, how we are ultimately reduced to a corpse in a casket or ashes in an urn.  Another thing that struck me that day was when I looked around after viewing the casket and saw all of my Grandpa’s children in attendance, along with nearly all of their children and a few of my Grandpa’s friends and in-laws.  This moment made me realize that my Grandpa may have been physically reduced to a casket, but that his legacy is the family he and his wife created and all of their posterity and others’ lives that he touched and made better.

When thinking about what truly endures, the best example that I can come up with is someone’s living legacy that they leave behind.  This doesn’t have to be limited to family members as people can leave a similar legacy through friends or communities.  Some luminaries such as Andrew Carnegie and Alfred Nobel have left living legacies through philanthropic contributions that continue to make an impact today.

Trying to encapsulate my thoughts on the matter, I think it comes down to that things that endure in this world, whether they be music, movies, relationships, or whatever else, are all high quality.  To use the example of music, this is the reason why Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Nirvana, and other groups continue to gain fans who weren’t even born when they disbanded and fad groups and artists such as Britney Spears, The Backstreet Boys, and Justin Bieber will inevitably fade away after the nostalgic factor wears off for their remaining fans.

The final lyric in Led Zeppelin’s “Ten Years Gone” is:

I’m never gonna leave you.  I never gonna leave/Holdin’ on, ten years gone/Ten years gone, holdin’ on, ten years gone

When it comes to my own ten year milestone that sparked this piece, I never intend to leave my wife and plan on “holdin’ on” to her and the living legacy that we are forging for another ten years, then another, and on into eternity.