I'm the type of music dork that gets hooked on a song for a few hours, clicking the "repeat" sign and just absorbing the song ad nauseum until, somewhere in the fourth hour, I never want to hear that damned song ever, ever again. I do that with TV shows, food, etc. Maybe it's the part of obsessive behavior I let roam free. In any case, today it's Bowie, and I can't stop listening to "Changes." It's this line that nailed me to the floor: "I watch the ripples change their size but never leave the stream of warm impermanence, so the days float through my eyes."
The idea of impermanence has been something that seriously resonated with me for awhile. Nothing is permanent, and as the song implies, everything changes. We change. I use science often as a major defense mechanism against long term relationships, so the idea of change is just...biology, and thus, not scary at all. Our hormones change. Our bodies change. We are essentially becoming different people all of the time.
So, in the ongoing relentless change that my body and my mind undergo--in my thirties, everything seems different. I feel different. I react differently. I want completely different things. I was laying on the couch the other day with my dog, Joplin, who gazes up at me with deep brown eyes filled with both love and mischief. I felt completely happy and content. Part of me, at some point in my youth, would have been itching to DO something and not "waste time." John Lennon once said that "Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted." I fully agree and understand that now. I also cry easier, tell people "I love you" often, and find myself wishing to be a part of my nieces' and nephew's lives. Changes---you know---oftentimes for the better.
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| All it takes, really. |
I also stopped buying into the excuse that because we change as part of our biological destiny, that we can't maintain good relationships long-term. Obviously, there are plenty of people that have already proved this theory wrong. I've not been one of them. Or have I?
When I talk about people I know and love, most of them I have known for a decade or so (give or take---28 years with my oldest, dearest friend). Somehow I have maintained those friendships that long (patient friends is my theory). I guess I have always believed in, and been a part of long-term relationships, just...the platonic ones.
Proven then: the acceptance and belief that impermanence is life and vice verse, and change is our only constant, is not mutually exclusive to healthy relationships. The patterns I have created for myself, now that they have been proven illogical, are likely to fade...just like "Changes." 43 times...it's enough, already.
Okay, maybe just a FEW more listens....
Skeptically Yours.
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