“It’s Just the Way it Is”

August 29, 2018 General Insights No Comments

No, it’s not.

“This is reality, to which you have to adjust.”

“This is how people are.”

“It’s the way of the world.”

Etc. etc.

I do not agree.

Apparently, I never came out of my ‘monkey years’, which in my country is another term for ‘puberty / adolescence’… and I see no reason why anyone should. ‘Monkey years’ are there for a reason. I think the best way to put this reason is: to not just comply with a given situation ‘because people say so’.

Adolescere = ‘to become adult’, ‘to grow up’

Thus: not yet adult, still growing.

I think people – especially nowadays – should be eternally ‘growing’.

Part of this shows in the concept of ‘eternal student’ as an emerging ideal in Western culture, even worldwide.

It’s technology-driven

You might be reading this text on social media / blogging on your mobile. Your father at your age might have been looking at ‘Star Track episode one’, in which even this would be science fiction.

It’s also culturally-driven

technology being a huge driver of this too. Living in an ever smaller world with many different influences etc.

There is also resistance to this ever-quicker-change.

And rightly so:

Deeply valuable things need to be kept.
Change-for-change tends to fly into superficiality.
Change needs to be manageable by ‘the people’ in general…

“Plus ça change, plus ça reste la même chose.”

[French for: “The more it changes, the more it stays the same.”]

This has a negative connotation, being about the superficiality of much ‘change’ that thus has little to no consequence: ‘not worth the effort, nor the commotion’. So better leave things as they are…

There is certainly a point in this. However, I wouldn’t see it as an endpoint. My alternative take on the proverb is: “The more it changes within a changing environment, the more it can stay the same at a deeply valuable level.” Otherwise said: “Through going with the flow in a qualitative way, you can keep what is really important at the deeper level.”

The deeper flow has another momentum.

This is also why I value staying an ‘adolescent’ (in an adult way). I want to respect the deeper flow as much as possible. This may appear much more stable. But it does also change. People change. I change. Cultures change.

The world changes.

And that’s OK. Nature continually changes. One shouldn’t resist change where it’s important. That’s real ‘growth’. If you resist it, it’s more readily like a decay.

And decay can readily be misused for the sake of ego-power.

“This is reality, to which you have to adjust.”

can be seen as: ”I don’t want to change and I don’t want you to change because that might prompt me to also need to change.”

This prevents growth.

‘Ego’ wants to be itself for eternity, unchanging, unchangeable. It wants to be the ‘I’ that lives forever. Even if it needs an imaginary bulb to do so. [see: ‘The Story of Ego’]

Politico-economics

The powerful (very rich etc.) can ‘stay the same’ by prompting the powerless to also ‘stay the same’, using for instance religion or all kinds of us-them-divide. This dynamic has always been present in history. There is no need even for the powerful to energize this spiral consciously. As with many things, it’s just a matter of turning in circles that happen to come along, in combination with an utterly not-caring for the deepest welfare of others and even of oneself.

Rich and poor having the same basic ego-driven attitude, things will remain indeed how they are for quite a long time. The rich-poor divide even becoming starker in the future. You see:

“This is how people are.”

I still do not agree.