Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.44

It is no evil for things to undergo change, and no good for things to subsist in consequence of change.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 4 (tr Long)

I’ve been, at various times in my life, on different sides of this matter. I’ve sometimes desperately wanted things to change, and I’ve also sometimes desperately wanted them to stay the same. In either case, my error has always been in thinking that my own preference for one state of affairs or another should determine anything at all.  

Back when I measured my life in weeks or months, everything seemed so static, and I craved something new. When I gained the benefit of a broader perspective, I would complain that nothing was ever constant. Once I measured my life in years or decades, it was very different.

We will sometimes try to push the world to change faster, and we will sometimes try to slow it all down. Our eagerness may take on ridiculous proportions. I’ve heard it said that “it must happen now, without delay!” I’ve also heard it said that “it must stay as it is, whatever the cost!”

I can no longer count the times that I have done the same thing twice, and either been disappointed that it was exactly the same, or been disappointed that it wasn’t exactly the same. If I consider change and constancy as relative to my own desires, I will most likely be unhappy. If, however, I can allow things to change as they will, on their own terms, in their own time, and in their own way, and if I can adapt my own thinking and living to them, I may find some peace for myself.

Heraclitus had it right, in one sense, to say that change is a constant, and that something will be different the moment you look at it twice. Yet at the same time, even as all the circumstances are altered, the order ruling them, and the harmony behind the variations, is always stable and secure. Parmenides offered the other side of it. These two aspects of early Greek thought balance and complement one another for a reason.

Nature will always modify her form, because her glory is expressing herself in so many different ways. Throughout it all, the changes act for the whole, where each and every part rightly comes and goes, but the pattern is always there at each and every moment.

Life is not a static and passive state, but a dynamic and active unfolding. That is the very beauty to the whole picture, and the work of art is always a work in progress. There is no final stroke of the brush that finishes the picture, only constant growth, addition, and transition.

I will demand change when I despise existence in its own terms, and I will only fear change when I despise existence on its own terms. It will be as it should, and my only responsibility is to determine the balance of change and constancy within myself.

Written in 1/2006

Image: Detail of Parmemides and Hercalitus, from Raphael, The School of Athens (c. 1511)