Vapor
A whispered phrase from an ancient text lingers in my mind, a quiet meditation on the fleeting nature of all things. Everything is nothing. Everything passes.
Hevel Havalim, said the Qohelet—the teacher, the sage, the speaker of uncomfortable truths.
In this ancient text, the teacher contemplates the fleeting nature of life’s preoccupations: Havel havalim, hakol havel. Often rendered in English as “vanity of vanities, all is vanity,” though this translation, while poetic, lacks the original Hebrew’s ephemeral touch. Hevel is not merely vanity—it is vapor, smoke, a something that is not a thing, without substance; here and gone in a breath.
הֲבֵל הֲבָלִים, הַכֹּל הָבֶל
Once I grasped this, the phrase cemented itself among my favorite pieces of existential poetry. It is both weightless and profound—a meditation on life’s worries dissipating like the fragile dew in your mom's garden. Some even claim that pronouncing it in Hebrew mimics the act of sighing, a slow exhalation of resignation or perhaps relief:
Havel havalim, hakol havel. Everything is nothing. Everything passes.
Once I grasped this, the phrase cemented itself among my favorite pieces of existential poetry. It is both weightless and profound.
It is with this phrase—credited to an anonymous writer from the mid-10th century BCE—that I wish to frame my own reflections on the mind’s struggles. Not as an attempt to out-philosophize an ancient wisdom text, but as a simple exercise of honesty. If nothing else, perhaps one day someone will read some of my words, recognize something of themselves in my journey, and realize that: everything passes.
Even this. This moment.