Nikita Biswas
19/UMTA/103
‘The moment of change is the only poem.’
- Adrienne Rich
You and I are undergoing a continuous and almost relentless process of change by the minute. For the next 60 seconds, your hair will collectively grow 1.1 inches, your body will shed and simultaneously replace skin cells ranging anywhere from 30,000 to 50,000, your heart will be pumping almost a gallon or more of blood to different organs and as you read this article, right now each neuron in your brain is probably sending up to 1000 nerve impulses, your brain processing this information at a whopping rate of 600 million bits of visual information. If our existence were a live-show, the whole shebang would be taking place at the backstage right from the day we set foot on this planet. Our physical bodies are an embodiment of unceasing change, so are our thoughts. Logically speaking, we are change.
Looking at it from the perspective of time, we are not who we were a minute back: our present selves are a minute older than the version of ourselves that we leave behind in the impenetrable territories of the past.
Our realities could be construed as functions of change and flow. This concept of an ever-changing world encompasses the core idea behind the Greek philosopher Heraclitus’ famous river analogy:
If you were to step into a river twice, your feet wouldn’t be touching the exact same water as that of the first time. The water flowing at any given instant wouldn’t be the same as the first time, considering the river has a continuous flow. In a Heraclitean way of speaking,
“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”
This idea regarding the water within a river always changing, even if the river looks the same, can be extended to the realms of life in general. We are never the same: evolving and undergoing a transformation in some way from our day-to-day experiences, even as a society. In short, ‘change is the only constant’, which is, yet another popular quote by the Greek philosopher, Heraclitus Of Ephesus.
This juncture begets an important question: Why then, do we resist change if it’s embedded so much into the fabric of our mortal existence?
An article that I recently came across, provided an interesting take on this: We only resist changes that are not in our immediate best interests. For instance, the transition from a sedentary lifestyle to a healthy one that would include reading, exercising and increasing the frequency of water intake is much more difficult than vice-versa. The above-mentioned healthy activities require steady consistency for it to provide good results in the long run. There’s no scope for instantaneous results. Moreover, it can also be linked to our incessant cravings for momentary satisfaction.
However, there’s one more perspective to it which claims that,
“People don't resist change; they resist loss.”
Sometimes, people become comfortably situated in misery; they don’t seek a way out or search for the light at the end of a tunnel because it’s unfamiliar territory and it can feel quite daunting.
In a nutshell, change seems to be nature’s way of proliferation, for better or for worse. In the words of John F. Kennedy,
“Change is the law of life, and those who look only to the past and present are certain to miss the future.”
So well written! :)