"How does it feel," once sang Bob Dylan (who is, by the way, one of my brother's favorite musicians!), "to be on your own, with no direction home, like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone?"  The baby boomers among us remember the day at the Monterey Folk Festival when Dylan, up to that point seemingly committed to folk music as a way of life, burst all his audience's categories when, set to perform this song, he made it electric and, most commentators agree, rock music was never the same.
     Ours, however, is not to dwell on this point, however historically interesting it may be.  It is rather to ponder, from an existential standpoint, the import of Dylan's words.  Most of us, I wager to say, have a home, and most of us, I also wager to say, are not completely unknown.  We have a place and people in the world.
     If we expand the picture, however, we see ourselves, known as we might be, still essentially alone.  The transience of this existence guarantees it.  Even what we consider to be our home, and even those whom we consider to be our closest and most dear friends and lovers will one day be gone, either before we go or, eventually, after.  Nothing, as someone wrote as he watched volcanic lava swarm over the ancient Roman city of Pompeii, lasts forever.  We walk in a world that, without any God or eternity to see it, is indeed like a rolling stone, great, amazing, and magnificent, yet fated to forever roam through a trackless cosmos, no reason for it to do so, no reason for it to be.  And one day, it, and everyone in it, will be gone.
     So I ask:  is this really all there is?