Wednesday, April 27, 2011

The Suddenness of Change

Often, change seems to happen very quickly. Even when it is a long time building. I was thinking about that today - my friend T. was fired from his job this morning. It was what I would call half a surprise to him, since he has been going through the process and in and out of meetings and his hearings. (All in all I think it's your basic unlawful termination on several levels, but ultimately that decision with rest with lawyers, a judge and juries.)

It did get me thinking about the suddenness of change though. Even when it is slow approaching, the threshold appears very quickly, often just the blink of an eye as we slip across it. Often, there isn't anything we can do about - things develop their own momentum, they have their weight, they move under their own volition.

Things change. We change. Time changes. Ovid said "tempus edax rerum". (Time, the devourer of all things.) I think that is a pretty apt description of it. The changes that flow along with time are so inexorable they are amazing. Wise men, men far wiser than I at least, say that we should learn to accept, even embrace change. I'd have to agree with that. As difficult as it can be at times, change is inevitable. The sooner we learn to embrace it, to accept it, the sooner we gain the ability to do the best we can and then let it lie, go to sleep, knowing we did the best we could and that the rest of lies in the inevitable flow of the universe.

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