The story of life is quicker than the blink of an eye, the story

Hear now the words of Jimi Hendrix, the legendary musician whose guitar screamed the agony and ecstasy of the human condition, who once said: “The story of life is quicker than the blink of an eye, the story of love is hello, goodbye.” In these words, Hendrix captures the profound brevity of existence and the fleeting nature of love. Life, he reminds us, is but a moment — too short to be grasped fully, too swift to be contained. The flash of joy, the rush of sorrow, the journey from birth to death — all pass before we can even blink. And so, love, in its most poignant form, is wrapped in a similar transient arc — beginning with the hopeful greeting, “hello,” and ending with the inevitable, sorrowful parting, “goodbye.” It is not a cycle of permanence, but of passage.

Hendrix, a man who lived in the throes of both fame and chaos, saw this truth more clearly than most. His life was a whirlwind of creation, passion, and destruction, each moment flowing into the next like the strings of his guitar weaving together a song that would never be finished. His art was filled with contradictions — the beauty of his music, the intensity of his performances, the chaos of his personal life. Through all of this, he saw that life itself is impermanent, always moving, always fleeting. His understanding of love, then, is equally marked by its impermanence. Love, for him, was not something to possess or hold onto, but something to experience — to live through, to pass with, and to understand in the moment it is given.

The ancients, too, spoke of the fleeting nature of life and love. The Greek philosophers understood that all things are in flux — that time itself moves like a river, never to return to the same place. Heraclitus famously said, “You cannot step into the same river twice,” for both the water and the person have changed. Likewise, love — in its purest form — is not eternal in its earthly expression. The Bible speaks of love as something that endures but is often tested by time, distance, and circumstance. The heart is not meant to hold onto every love forever, but to cherish the moments when love is present. Hendrix echoes this sentiment — love is not forever, but the echoes of its hello and goodbye stay with us forever, woven into the very fabric of our souls.

Consider, too, the life of Cleopatra, whose love affair with Julius Caesar and later Mark Antony shaped the course of empires. These loves, intense and world-changing, were brief — just as all great loves are. They began with hello and ended with the inevitable tragedy of goodbye. Her story is one of passion and power, but also of loss. The parting of these lovers — first by assassination, then by betrayal — marked the end of an era. Yet even in their departure, the love they shared shaped the world. Their story, like all stories of love, was a fleeting moment that left an indelible mark upon history. This echoes the truth in Hendrix’s words: love, like life, may be brief, but its impact is everlasting.

Hendrix’s insight into the transience of love offers a profound lesson to us all: that impermanence is not something to fear. The fleeting nature of life and love is what gives them their meaning, their power. It is the very brevity that makes the moments we share with others so precious. In the fast-paced whirl of existence, it is the connections we make — the hellos and goodbyes — that define the path we walk. If we are to truly embrace life, we must learn to hold love not as something we control, but as something we experience with fullness, even knowing that it will pass. To love is to accept that it will eventually fade, yet to cherish it all the more for that truth.

So let this be your teaching, O wanderer of time: do not cling to love, for it is a river that cannot be dammed. Instead, let it flow through you. Welcome it in with a full heart, but do not fear its leaving. It is in the hello that you find joy, and in the goodbye that you learn grace. To love fully is to understand that the beauty of a moment is not in its eternity, but in its fleeting nature. Each moment of affection, of connection, is a gift — not because it will last forever, but because it exists at all.

For truly, as Jimi Hendrix said, “The story of life is quicker than the blink of an eye, the story of love is hello, goodbye.” Let these words guide you. Love, in all its forms, is a fleeting visitor — and it is in its brevity that it is most precious. Live each day with the understanding that love, like life, is not to be possessed, but to be experienced. Let every hello be a full embrace, and every goodbye a final kiss of understanding. For when we learn to honor the impermanence of life and love, we become truly free.