The more things change (part XVI, apparently...)

I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence and
So the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same

"Changes" by David Bowie

It's very easy to chalk things up to "change". We have lots of interesting witticisms, catch phrases and lyrics about change. We spend massive amounts of time, money and energy dealing with--or fighting against--the possibility of change. Change is, quite frankly, the great dread we all live with. In the cannon of Existentialist literature, the one constant theme (once you whittle away all the verbiage) that is dealt with is change (or again; a perceived lack thereof). The fear of change--of being nudged out of our "dreaded contentment"--is so overwhelming at times in our lives that it has caused some to make the ultimate change (and ultimate mistake) and end their existences. How shocking to me now, yet not so long ago I, too, was as misguided as that.

A few philosophers* have taken a stab at this topic, so I'll let their work stand in stead of anything I may rehash, but I do have a better handle on this now than I once did, at least in my own mind, and for my own life. That's all I'll really report on the topic of change. I still don't find it easy, and I sure as hell don't find it fun most times, but one thing I have come to appreciate about change is that it is rather liberating. Honestly, it establishes to me that the Universe is doing its thing exactly as it is supposed to. Were things to stay the same, something would be very, very wrong.

When change comes, it's like a reset on the here and now, reminding you that no matter how comfortable you may have allowed yourself to become, the Universe calls you to rise up and show why we are all so special. Because we are, after all, the only beings we know of that can not only deal with change, but appreciate why change is so important (above and beyond needing a place to nest for the night). We can plan all we want (however vainly) to attempt to prevent change from happening in the future, or write songs about the tumult of the past, but when you finally fall in line with your breath, and be intimately aware of your body in relation to everything else, there's a chance that it may occur to you, too...

Change is what makes the now worth-while.


*= Okay, all of them. It was a joke...