To Change, Or Not To Change.

I’m posting here today on a topic that plays a lot in my heart and mind and at the end I wanted to raise some questions that I can’t ever set aside and I’m curious to see if anyone who reads all this has any thoughts on the matter:

Life as a whole has hit many cross-roads for me these past 2 years, some good, some bad, some could have been avoided, some were inevitable. I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of change, in life and in everything that constitutes life as we know it – it’s why I suppose I ascribe to science over religion, to fluid evolution in all things from biology to morality to thought.

But change is not always an answer or a means in and of itself. It is something that happens – it is not a “thing” that can be absolutely contained or foreseen or dealt with, no matter how much you try. Change when and where it happens, by chance or fate (however you see it), is like a force of nature that can at best be weathered better, but it cannot be avoided. Not for long anyway.

And all this is what brings me to today’s entry here. The world is always in flux, ideologies, politics, national lines, technology, economics and so on and on and on… but in many ways it feels like the point at which we are today is seeing some of the most drastic and rapid change in human history, at least in terms of all happening simultaneously anyway:

1. Global politics is reaching dangerous tipping points in European nations over immigration policies and secession/independence movements, the Euro-block is shaking, America is isolating itself further from a world it needs to survive, China is growing stronger but also spreading itself thin, India is seeing a communal boom and increased divisiveness, North Korea is becoming a greater threat to the world at large – and peoples faith in political leaders is as shaky as ever if not more so than before now.
2. Climate change is showing more and more with each passing year – deniers can deny but scientifically maintained records from around the world and the abnormal weather conditions for the last several years is neither random nor fictional. Those who are willing to keep an open mind are seeing the change around them from what they knew and saw and felt in their climates over the last few decades.
3. Gender inequalities and double-standards with things like harassment and rape and the like are bringing a lot to the surface that is shaking institutions left and right in numerous nations.
4. Racism, both outright and subtle, is seeing a resurgence in terms of finding its voice, growing xenophobia and heightened aggression in response in many ways to the growing need for and stronger push for integration, tolerance and changing stereotypes and accepted social situations and norms in a multitude of things.
5. The fight for changing our practices in industry and power generation is in a bigger tussle than I can ever remember it being.
6. The faith of people in the “establishment” banking, business, real estate and other systems is at an extreme low and though those few at the top are fighting it tooth and nail – battles for banking laws, for net neutrality, corporate checks and balances and so many other things are now being very seriously pushed for across the world.

And all there are just things I’ve scribbled down here off the top of my head in a minute or so – I’m sure you could think of many more things going on in the world around you right now to add to that list.

Which brings me finally to the thoughts that swirl around my head these days. Here’s some epigrams that have stayed with me and seen individually are interesting but seen together become more so:

The only thing that is constant is change.
(- Heraclitus)

The more things change, the more they stay the same.
(- Snake Plissken)

Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.
(- Mary Shelley)

The snake which cannot cast its skin, has to die. As well the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind.
(- Friedrich Nietzsche)

Are any of these thoughts true?

Are they all true?

If the latter be the case, as I feel it is, what does that say about us and our future? Especially given our present?

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