Not Forever, Just For Now
Not Forever, Just For Now
Shout out to my fellow ENTJ Pisceans
I have a penchant for personality tests. I am confident that of the 16 Meyers-Briggs types, I am an ENTJ. I don’t believe in gods or fate or karma, but I do occasionally seek out my horoscope in the back of a newspaper. I find it fascinating how humans have created so many theories and tools for self-classification and supposed self-awareness. Most of these have been around for centuries, and I suppose they’ve stuck because they give us hope and identity in an(y) ever-changing society.
To use the horoscope example: my happiest holiday is on a sunny beach and spending hours in warm waves. Swimming in the sun reduces me to my essential, elemental self. It makes me feel calm and energised and refreshed and humbled by nature. I lie on the sand or I thrash in the waves and I feel like a kid again. Even in my forties, it’s an activity I seek out at least a couple times each year. Is my love of sun and swimming because I was born in late February and I’m a Pisces, a “water sign”? Who knows. I also love eating fish, so is that further evidence for my astrological destiny? Doubtful.
All of this stuff is fun to think and read about, but I don’t buy into any of it wholeheartedly.
I love a clever phrase, an epigram, a mantra. Maybe the act of writing is the search for new ones. Lyrics elevate simple phrases by attaching a melody. By being in a song, words don't necessarily change or gain meaning, but they do become more impactful and memorable. I discovered the phrase “not forever, just for now” two decades ago, in the Uncle Tupelo song “Whiskey Bottle.”
Uncle Tupelo is songwriter Jeff Tweedy’s first band. He subsequently found more widespread acclaim as the leader of Wilco; more recently, he’s become a best-selling author. I fell for Wilco first, then went back for Uncle Tupelo. “Whiskey Bottle” – written and sung by co-frontman Jay Farrar, not Tweedy – has great lyrics about hard livin’ and eventual redemption. (I prefer to ignore the Jesus bit.) As soon as I heard it, I adopted “not forever, just for now” as my mantra, a concise way to describe my approach to life – focus on now, because nothing is forever. Perhaps it’s idealistic, maybe it sounds short-sighted, but it rings true to me. I built a playlist around this phrase, with themes of impermanence, decay, redemption, and evolution.
Late night television host Stephen Colbert has a recurring segment called “The Colbert Questionert” where he asks a standard set to celebrities. The questions are a mix of silly and serious, and the segment works best when the guest is caught off-guard and their answers are authentic, not the usual scripted banter. Colbert’s final question is “Describe the rest of your life in five words” and it’s so obvious what my answer would be:
Not
Forever
Just
For
Now