flux.

For months I’ve been quietly observing change. Not the reality that replaces the prior, but the actual transition itself. I’ve become obsessed with the process of evolution. I had always thought time to be the magic catalyst of metamorphosis. However I now know this not to be the case at all.

They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.

Andy Warhol (1928 – 1987), The Philosophy of Andy Warhol

This has become a trend in my day to day life. Watching what is willing to change and what is not. Although it is apparent that everything evolves and changes, I’ve noticed the things that change the least are the ones that are less alive. I realized despite vast exterior changes, I’ve remained living much like a rock for several years. Rocks change, yes, because eventually life around the rock moves and shifts. Much like a heavy stream eventually will shape a rock. But this is the slowest lifeless change I choose not to endure anymore. Nothing is more painful that being shoved into a new reality; slowly, erosively, and in silence.

It may not seem like it at first, but it takes effort to stay still while everything around you is moving. It’s difficult to hold on to something for an insane amount of time. But it’s not the amount of time spent on the grip that makes the action look so strange but rather, the unwillingness to let go. However, it’s that very notion I had about time changing things that prevented me from augmentation. The hope of one day waking up a new person with no anchor was a fantastic hope indeed. I failed to notice that everything that changes in time had a willingness to change. Even what seems beyond our control; like aging. Aging seems to sneak up on an unsuspecting face. Although gerontology is a relatively new study, it’s now a common theory that it is not a pre-programmed body that contributes to aging but an accumulated damage to cells. Not different to the eroding rock.

I’m not trying to sound like I know the answer to looking 15 for the rest of our days. But I am trying to express that we are the ones that commit the change we see through the years. Not time. When people said to me “You’ll feel better about it. Just give it some time.”, I believed them. I figured time is all I needed. But as time passed, things became increasingly difficult, and I couldn’t understand why.

The Dark ages were a period that stayed stagnant for a long time because of an unwillingness to accept change. Change in science, religion, politics, or even hygiene. This is where I felt I have been living. And I can assure you, it’s a disgusting place to live. I had a sick unwillingness to let go of the past because I believed things to be beyond my control. I found myself sitting. Sometimes patiently. Other times, not so much. But always sitting; still and unflinching.

There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.

Nelson Mandela (1918 – ), ‘A Long Walk to Freedom’

Now when I see things that change at a rocks pace, I can’t help but to feel I am moving  at a faster rate. For it wasn’t until a series of unfortunate events took place, that I realized just how much power I had to control my own change. I was told this by a few before.

But my belief in time prevented me from seeing this.

~ by Keira Dazi on August 16, 2009.