David Bowie’s words are lean but heavy. He doesn’t offer a permanent crown, no lifelong badge of glory. Just a fleeting moment that lasts for one day and that is the power it needs. Most of us won’t topple empires or have our names carved into a marble pedestal. Who wants that anyway, look where it got Ozymandias.
All of us do get our shot at being heroic in the cracks of an ordinary life.
Heroes aren’t always the ones charging into burning buildings or standing before microphones. Sometimes it is the parent who works the late shift and still makes it to the Saturday morning game. The nurse who holds a hand in the last quiet hours. The kid who stands up to a bully on the playground, even if no one else notices. These aren’t permanent victories. They are brief and fragile, but they matter. They change something in the world, if only for a heartbeat.
That was what Bowie was singing about... defiance in the face of odds that seem impossible. The world can crush you, but for one day, you can rise above it, and sometimes that single day is enough to carry you through a lifetime.
Tonight, we get another reminder of the fleeting and the mighty. The Harvest Moon will climb into the October sky, glowing bigger and brighter than most. It is a supermoon, and the first full moon of autumn. Farmers once relied on its extra light to pull crops from the fields, working long into the night. A borrowed gift of time before the season’s cold set in.
Like Bowie’s line, the Harvest Moon won’t last. By Tuesday, its brilliance will start to fade, and it will return to its quiet cycle. But for these nights, from October 5th to 7th, it will stand as a beacon. A reminder that some moments are powerful not because they last forever, but because they don’t.
So if life hands you a chance today, take it. Stand taller, fight harder, love deeper. Be a hero, maybe not forever, maybe not in marble, but for one day.
Because sometimes, one day is all it takes.
