TBH, We Forgot About Impermanence

Why This Matters

"If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to." — Lao Tzu (attributed)

Most of us spend our lives trying to hold onto things. 

We have material things that we collect like gifts, family heirlooms, prized possessions, any objects that have memories or people associated with them and, of course, money.  

More importantly, though, are our ideas we try to hold on to about the world and about ourselves. We build our sense of reality, worth, and relation to our communities with ideas that center around what someone or something is or has. 

The more permanence we attach to parts of our reality, the safer we feel.

“Everything changes,” they say.  

"No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man." — Heraclitus

We often hear similar phrases in movies, song lyrics, or in common conversation, so it feels like we know it as a fundamental truth. But ask yourself what makes you feel secure in your day-to-day life and then consider how it’d feel if everything on your list was constantly changing. Suddenly the meaning behind “everything changes” has to be reconfigured for it to fit. 

We’re surrounded!

"We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us." — Winston Churchill

Research tells us that predictable environments contribute to feelings of safety, while uncertainty is closely linked to anxiety (Grupe & Nitschke, 2013). If we look around, it is plain to see that predictability is reinforced by the illusion of permanence that surrounds us, especially those of us that live in more populated areas. 

The view of the city outside my window is filled with the seemingly never-changing: pavement, sidewalks, streetlights, signs, buildings. It’s the same inside our homes: floors, walls, windows, artwork, furniture, appliances. We might replace things, but that change isn’t a morph — replaced things continue existing somewhere else. 

The human race has increasingly surrounded itself with longer lasting materials and it might be quietly teaching us that permanence is reality’s natural state, while change is something that happens randomly in contained instances. 

Sound familiar? 

It was different before.

“In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks." — John Muir

Before the European invasion, Native Americans’ entire universe was naturally occurring and constantly changing. They lived in nature, as opposed to today’s common view of nature being equivalent to outside. Even their most permanent structures, their dwellings, were made from materials that needed constant attention due to deterioration and seasonal change. They spent every moment of their lives surrounded by a constantly changing world. That may be a foundation to the lifestyle and spirituality of Native Americans that has them regarded as wise and in touch with nature. 

Would it be a surprise to learn that generations immersed in visible change developed a more intuitive relationship with impermanence than we do today? 

Symptoms hiding in plain sight.

"The limits of my language mean the limits of my world." — Ludwig Wittgenstein

Overdeveloped illusions of permanence permeate our culture in ways that may seem invisible and inconsequential, but they add up. English, for example, has evolved to imply permanence in ways other languages have not. Temporary attributes or states of being are communicated as definitive traits of a person. Where many languages say, “I have sadness, I have hunger" we say, “I am sad, I am hungry,” constantly reinforcing a reality defined by a snapshot view of the present moment. 

We say, "I am anxious," instead of "I am experiencing anxiety."

We expect relationships to remain the same instead of constantly evolving.

We treat careers as identities rather than chapters.

We see aging as a loss instead of a continuation of change.

There are so many examples, and combined they strengthen their invisibility. 

A different way to see. 

"Look deeply into nature, and then you will understand everything better." — Albert Einstein

Imagine walking through your day acknowledging that everything you see is in constant change. Every solid structure is in constant deterioration. All matter is made of atoms that are in constant motion and it all, no matter how solid it seems, is in constant deterioration toward becoming part of something else. 

This cycle of nature is all of our real Home. It’s where our houses live, it's home to our streets and cities. It’s home for our communities, our cal-de-sacs, our school districts. It’s home to our countries and every piece of every part of everything on Earth. 

Nothing is static — not a tree, not the floor, not your face, not relationships, not cities, not even your thoughts or your identity. Everything is changing, always.  

Reflections.

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes." — Marcel Proust

We’ve gradually come to expect stability from a world that has never promised it. 

Have a look at a tree or a plant. It wasn’t the same as it was this morning and not because it’s dramatically different — because it literally cannot be the same as it was. Imagine it in spring, in winter, in ten years. 

We don’t  need to learn that everything changes. We already know it. Perhaps what we need is to learn how to see it, again.