August 30, 2026

Pass The Torch

So the sum of things is ever being renewed, and mortals live by mutual dependence. Some species increase, others diminish, and in a short space the generations of living creatures are changed, and, like runners, pass on the torch of life.

Lucretius wrote this in Rome during the last chaotic decades of the Republic, a time of civil war, proscriptions, and constant political upheaval, when the old order seemed to be dissolving around him. He was an Epicurean, trying to free his readers from the fear of death by showing that nothing in nature truly vanishes, it only changes form and hands itself forward. The image comes from Roman torch relays, where runners sprinted through the dark passing a flame from hand to hand so it would never go out. It still speaks today because it turns the anxiety of impermanence into something closer to duty: you are not asked to last forever, only to carry the flame well while it is yours.