Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 6.37

He who has seen present things has seen all, both everything that has taken place from all eternity and everything that will be for time without end.

For all things are of one kin and of one form.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 6 (tr Long)

I have become so familiar with the Stoic insistence that everything changes, how the continual process of generation, modification, and destruction is always present in life, that I can easily overlook the constant patterns of such change. Particular things will come and they will go, but the shared form by which they come and go remains universal. The players are different, so to speak, but the stories remain the same. Even as everything seems new, there is still really nothing new under the sun, because what is now has once been before, and will soon be again.

When I was very young, everything seemed quite static and stable, and it took the passage of time to recognize that what I though would always be there would actually pass away, sometimes quite unexpectedly.

Then I noticed that things started to come around again, that the very same circumstances and hardships, the very same pleasures and pains that I had experienced before, were now being experienced by others.

I would smile when I saw people falling in love, because I had known that once. I would cry when I saw their hearts broken, because I had been there, too. I saw the same hope and despair, the same dreams and disappointments, the same commitments and betrayals. Different people were involved, of course, and the settings were different, but the situations were replaying themselves, and the choices people made, for good or bad, were on a sort of loop.

The same sun rises and sets over the world day after day, it shines brightly or is darkened through clouds, over all sorts of varied landscapes and new generations, but it is still the same sun. Yes, one day, I imagine, that sun will burn out, and then a different sun, but still very much like it, will rise and set on a different world, but still very much like it.

If I had the necessary gifts, I would write a piece of music chronicling the lives of varied people in three sequential decades, say the ‘70’s, ‘80’s, and ‘90’s, and make a film to go with it, sometimes zipping ahead in fast forward, sometimes slowing down to zoom in on this or that situation.

It could even, perhaps, have a single, unnoticed observer throughout the whole affair, who alone sees how the more things change, the more they stay the same. Someone like the nameless figure in Kieslowksi’s Dekalog, a set of short films where people struggle with the same old Ten Commandments now as they always have, and as long as there have ever been rational animals.

The longer I’ve walked through this world, the more I stumble across the same old problems, with the same old solutions, and people having to relearn it all over again. This is hardly mysterious, because it remains the same Nature, ordered by the same Providence, populated by human beings who may speak differently, have wildly diverging customs, and look quite distinct, but who ultimately all have the same needs. They seek to understand, and they seek to love, because they are all creatures of mind and will, even when they don’t recognize it at the time.

People have often told me that there are really only a certain number of plots possible in drama, whether they insist three are three, six, seven, or a few dozen. We may divide them in any number of ways, just like we can with any set of principles or rules, but it seems quite fitting that each story mirrors every other that preceded it, and predicts every other that will follow it.

Written in 5/2007

IMAGE: If you have never seen this set of films, stop now, and go watch them. If you still have an open mind and a caring heart, both will be deeply changed. Then, after you are done laughing, crying, and banging your fists on the table, watch them again.