I resist change. Fear closes me off from openness to change. As I was driving through the suburbs today, I saw an airliner gliding across the sky. Behind it, a V of Canada geese seemed to follow it just behind. Of course, the plane was much higher than and farther from the geese than it looked. Yet even knowing this, I couldn’t help but perceiving the two as very close in space, and on the same level. As I stopped at a traffic light, I watched the jetliner pull away, far ahead of the honking geese.
It reminds me of how technological evolution outpaces biological change. Human-made change dictates to nature. In his book Future Shock, Alvin Toffler described and predicted accelerated rates of change in the human world. These self-reinforcing changes speed up in a positive feedback loop. Technological changes happen so quickly that we find it difficult to make sense of them, especially as we grow older and less adaptable. As we age, we become less relevant to the world. We often grow afraid and close off to the changes. The narratives we create in reaction to these changes become stories of fear and blame. Climate change. Who’s to blame? The big corporations ship jobs overseas. Shame on them. The Government has become a snooping Big Brother taxing us out of existence. Fear Big Brother.
But we only construct these narratives to try to make sense of things we don’t really understand. In his book The Black Swan, Nicholas Hassim Taleb proposes, and then shows, how we fail to truly grasp the reasons for or meanings behind major events and trends, sometimes even long after they’ve occurred. And if we don’t know the reasons behind historical events like revolutions, world wars or economic collapses – either as individuals or in the collective – then our blame is similarly misplaced.
My mind takes a picture of the world at a given moment. As I age, so, too, does the world. Yet as I age, the image in my photo stays exactly the same as it was when the picture was taken. Events swirl around me with greater and greater speed. Yet my picture of the world stays fixed. The greater the difference between the world around me and the snapshot of it I’ve created in my mind, the greater my discomfort.
The solution is to open myself to change; all change. If I can’t do anything about these changes, I need to accept them. The Serenity Prayer counsels us to accept the things we cannot change. Maybe we also need to accept change itself as one of the things I can’t change. I can’t change the fact that everything changes. We need to open ourselves to the fact of change and the pace of change. This is the first step in adaptation, in evolving to cope with any new person, place, time, thing or situation. Only then, is action possible. When I do this, I change along with conditions.
© 2022 by Michael C. Just
Mike’s novel, The Dirt: The Journey of a Mystic Cowboy, is available in softcover or eBook formats through Amazon.
You can purchase the book through this website. Or go straight to amazon at https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+dirt+journey+of+a+mystic+cowboy&crid=1S40Q4BXSUWJ6&sprefix=the+dirt%3A+journey+of+a+m%2Caps%2C180&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_23
Mike’s other titles, including The Crippy, The Mind Altar, and Canyon Calls, are available through this website or through Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002
Four of his short stories have recently been published online:
Lies, Ltd. has been published by The Mystery Tribune @ Lies, Ltd.: Literary Short Fiction by Michael C. Just (mysterytribune.com)
The Obligate Carnivore has been published by the Scarlet Leaf Review @ Category: MICHAEL JUST – SCARLET LEAF REVIEW
I See You, Too has been published by the 96th of October @ I See You, Too – 96th of October
Offload, a short story about a man who can heal any disease, is now live and can be read at The Worlds Within at Offload – The Worlds Within