i have yet finished the book; but somehow Woolf had already ruined so many things for me. and i hate and love the fact that i love and hate her for that, for how she was able to turn the idea of a rainbow into a whole episode of existential crisis for anyone that even in the slightest way share the same distorted view of the world as hers, and merely a surprise for anyone who don't or have yet to realize that gut-wrenching truth.
a slow burn, as it forced me to become obsessed with time again. once again after all the consolation and compromise, i envy the things i do, as they certainly will outlast me, though i'm not sure if it would be for days, months, years, or even hundreds of years, were i lucky enough to achieve something that memorable in life. more and more i realized how much i have been living through the eyes of others, trying to contemplate a sense of control over something i know for sure that i will never be able to grasp; since what's the point eventually, for one to find one's self but ceases to exist.
"it was all ephemeral as a rainbow"
ephemeral
i've been looking at the word for a hundred times already, as if i'm in constant fear that it would act its meaning, and doubt the ability of words and language, things that are almost certainly permanent, to describe something that aren't. the meaning seems incongruent, like that ridiculously long word, used only to indicate the phobia of long words. people either create things or give things some meaning, just to be remembered for as long as they can imagine. but then the things they create become something of its own, the things they give meaning to can and probably will, adopt a new meaning from somebody else. relativity makes everything changing and small, for i am ephemeral in the eyes of the universe, of the uncertainty of time, and of whatever creation may define.
the waves seem to wash over letters written on the sand in seconds, to the people who perceive them. but to the letters under the afternoon sun themselves, it was a lifetime.
just as the rainbow lived its ephemeral life in the most glorious way, perceived by who knows how many people in awe of its vitality and warmth and transcendence and luxury,
and then,
disappeared,
for exactly how long one can possibly spend thinking about a glimpse of a rainbow.

then it struck me, hard, for the question of how i am supposed to beat a rainbow's magnificence.