Dixi, Custodium

We return again to the great Psalm of the frailty, brevity, and vanity of life, Psalm 39.  The acute and immediate sense of one's very existence and its transient nature are articulated in a deeply resonant way in this Psalm.  The Psalmist says his "heart was hot" within him, and while "musing the fire burned."

"Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth..." (Psalm 39:5)

I am reminded of Sartre's Nausea whose protagonist Roquentin is overwhelmed with his own visceral sense of existence.  The Psalmist in my view provides the canonical form for this deep sentiment that echoes through human history and philosophy.