eccles 1

Ecclesiastes 1

All Is Vanity

¹The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.
² Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher,
vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
³ What does man gain by all the toil
at which he toils under the sun?
⁴A generation goes, and a generation comes,
but the earth remains forever.
⁵ The sun rises, and the sun goes down,
and hastens to the place where it rises.
⁶ The wind blows to the south
and goes around to the north;
around and around goes the wind,
and on its circuits the wind returns.
⁷All streams run to the sea,
but the sea is not full;
to the place where the streams flow,
there they flow again.
⁸All things are full of weariness;
a man cannot utter it;
the eye is not satisfied with seeing,
nor the ear filled with hearing.
⁹ What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done,
and there is nothing new under the sun.
¹⁰Is there a thing of which it is said,
"See, this is new"?
It has been already
in the ages before us.
¹¹There is no remembrance of former things,
nor will there be any remembrance
of later things yet to be
among those who come after.

bnl lyrics

"It's All Been Done"

I met you before the fall of Rome
And I begged you to let me take you home
You were wrong, I was right
You said goodbye, I said goodnight

It's all been done
It's all been done
It's all been done before

I knew you before the west was won
And I heard you say the past
was much more fun
You go your way, I go mine
But I'll see you next time

It's all been done
It's all been done
It's all been done before

And if I put my fingers here, and if I say
"I love you, dear"
And if I play the same three chords,
Will you just yawn and say

It's all been done
It's all been done
It's all been done before

Alone and bored on a thirtieth-century night
Will I see you on The Price Is Right?
Will I cry? Will I smile?
As you run down the aisle?

It's all been done
It's all been done
It's all been done before

its all been done...

the sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises...eccles1.5

its not original, not a new thought, but then again how many truly are?

and that's exactly the point of this unoriginal point..that nothing is original.

what happens has happened and will happen again.

the sun goes up and down and up again (or technically just round and round).

waves roll in and roll out, winds blow north and south and north again...

as the preacher wrote above, and as the bare naked ladies sang a few thousands of years later...

its all been done.

let's forget nature for a moment and look at humanity.

we love and hate and love again.

we cry and laugh and cry some more.

we sleep, we wake, we dream.

we all tread in some truly well-worn footsteps.

yet its the one thing we strive for, the innate desire that motivates us, the never-ending appeal.

we don't want to be the best, we want to be the first.

ground-breaking. never been seen before. innovative. original.

and for the most part we fool ourselves that we can get there.

we envy those who apparently have, and this fuels our fire all the more.

but if we seek the honest truth, we discover that we are all fools. utter fools. what we think is new is not. we have simply buried our heads in the sand and have forgotten what has come before.

take off your polaroid ray ban 'innovative' blinkers and look, read, listen.

it. is. not. new.

variations on a theme.

another perspective on an old idea.

its strikes me time and time again when i read an old novel or poem, listen to an old song or play, study an old photo...what is here has been before, and will be again. an idea that we thought modern or 'off our time' appears in a 17th century novel. funny isn't it? don't believe me? read tom jones or any dickens...or anything. you'll be surprised, but you shouldn't be. we've been warned.

so what do we do...give up? just copy? forget new and just relearn the old? your guess is as good as mine, but i'm pretty sure someone's already come up with the answer.