Everything changes; everything evolves, all is transitory. This may be the fundamental fact of life. Buddhist philosophy is particularly insightful on this point with its distinction between gross and subtle impermanence. In simple language, George Harrison set this idea to music.
“All Things Must Pass”
Sunrise doesn’t last all morning
A cloudburst doesn’t last all day
Seems my love is up and has left you with no warning
It’s not always going to be this grey
A cloudburst doesn’t last all day
Seems my love is up and has left you with no warning
It’s not always going to be this grey
All things must pass
All things must pass away
All things must pass away
Sunset doesn’t last all evening
A mind can blow those clouds away
After all this, my love is up and must be leaving
It’s not always going to be this grey
A mind can blow those clouds away
After all this, my love is up and must be leaving
It’s not always going to be this grey
All things must pass
All things must pass away
All things must pass
All things must pass away
All things must pass
None of life’s strings can last
So, I must be on my way
And face another day
Now the darkness only stays the night-time
In the morning it will fade away
Daylight is good at arriving at the right time
It’s not always going to be this grey
All things must pass
All things must pass away
All things must pass
All things must pass away
So, I must be on my way
And face another day
Now the darkness only stays the night-time
In the morning it will fade away
Daylight is good at arriving at the right time
It’s not always going to be this grey
All things must pass
All things must pass away
All things must pass
All things must pass away
One thing I took away from Siddharatha was I couldn’t change my being, only control my cravings and desires that cause so much pain and suffering. Still working on the question: Does life have meaning or do we make our own meaning?
What is equally striking is that no one (or very few, such as Zen monks or something like that) really understands impermanence, and quick impermanence at that. It seems a ‘simple’ idea but the simplicity is an illusion. We go around as if there’ll be no changes, or as if this idea were taboo and better not having. So we keep making the same mistakes, i.e. smoke cigarettes and die because of them (which is unfortunately exactly what happened to Harrison); some of us hurt others and in the process we pay the price too; waste our time whining and moaning about everything that’s more or less trivially wrong about others, waste our time obsessing with material things like money, etc etc…in general, doing everything harder for ourselves and others. It seems to me that very few understand that life truly is short, that nothing is guaranteed to be there again tomorrow (or next week, month, or year), and that is better to be careful and not hurt oneself or others while being in the process of living this short life!
Thank you for your post!
”Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal.” -Schopenhauer
thanks as always for sharing your thoughts Luigi. It seems that Schopenhauer was in the tradition of Heraclitus, Bergson, and other process thinkers, as was Jean Piaget about whose thought I wrote my dissertation.