"I had a dream. Crazy dream. Anything I wanted to know, anyplace I needed to go..." (Led Zeppelin) And so the song remains the same. And the dream remains the same. And the dream changes. And thereby so does the song. And so I urge you to think about change and about constants... and about where they overlap.
JOURNAL: List 15 things that change. List 15 things that do not change.
15 THINGS THAT CHANGE:
1. the weather
... the shift of cloud formations... the calm of the lake in the morning before the breeze picks up... the fog that envelops, blinds, obscures and then dissipates to reveal a clarity that seemed impossible moments before... the flurry of flurries that jams traffic as people forget how to drive in the snow and then turns into a sweet drifting lullaby of white outside your window in the evening, swaying one way, hushing another until all the world is pacified...
2. my thoughts
... racing at 3am when all things converge in the dark, dark night... percolating as I read articles in the morning... moving from incubation to decision... moving from latency to actuality... bouncing across the stones of complexity that confuse me even though I know somewhere they all cohere into something of significance... thinking the words I cannot articulate...
3. my interests
...ballet and gymnastics when I was six... sweater dresses and tights and slumber parties when I was ten... soccer and swimming and getting good grades and organizing family events and directing films when I was fifteen... my thoughts and thought in general and how people think and why and cultures and seeing the world and understanding and trying to understand and opening my eyes and broadening my vision when I was twenty-two... now: establishing, fine-tuning, fly-fishing, being strong (physically and mentally), growing more inward than outward, contributing, writing, writing, writing, starting a business, loving, committing
4. identity
... cultural identities that alter internally and externally... myself of yesterday and of today and of tomorrow... anyone from the inside versus the outside... group identities: racial, ethnic, national...
5. world conflicts
... then: Rome versus everyone else; now: United States versus everyone else... the Middle East... U.S.-Mexico border... pirates... empires and tyrants and anarchy and peace...
6. technology and inventions
shelter and spears and burial and bows and flutes and pigments and rope and pottery (Paleolithic Era)... cast iron and crossbow and wheelbarrows and catapults (5th century BC)... paper (2nd century BC)... multiple-arch buttress dam (1st century AD)... movable type (1088)... magnetic compass (1182)... gunpowder (1249)... eyeglasses (1268-1289)... clocks (1280)... windmills (1285) ... golfballs (1400)... oil painting (1420)... the printing press (1455)... flush toilets (1500)... compound microscope (1590)... telescope (1608)... submarines (1620)... blood transfusions (1625)... pressure cookers (1679)... steam pumps (1698)... pianos (1709)... tuning forks (1711)... mercury thermometer (1724)... circular saw (1780)... guillotine (1789)... bicycles (1791)... ambulances (1792)... cotton gin (1794)... smallpox vaccine (1796)... batteries (1799)... electric lights (1809)... tin cans (1810)... plastic surgery (1814)... soda fountain and the stethoscope (1819)... matches (1827)... typewriters (1829)... sewing machines (1830)... the wrench and the mechanical calculator (1835)... postage stamps (1837)... grain elevators (1842)... the facsimile (1843)... dental chair (1848)... safety pin (1849)... dishwasher (1850)... pasteurization (1856)... machine guns and plastic (1862)... dynamite (1866)... traffic lights (1868)... telephone (1876)... toilet paper (1878)... Coca Cola (1886)... radar and contact lenses (1887)... zippers (1893)... roller coasters (1898)... vacuum cleaners (1899)... zeppelins (1900)... polygraph machine and neon lights (1902)... crayons and windshield wipers (1903)... tractors (1904)... theory of relativity (1905)... Cornflakes (1906)... geiger counter (1908)... instant coffee (1909)... crossword puzzles and ecstasy and the bra (1913)... stainless steel (1916)... fortune cookies (1918)... pop-up toaster and short-wave radio (1919)... technicolor (1927)... penicillin and bubble gum (1928)... car radio (1929)... modern color TV and the jeep (1940)... the slinky and silly putty (1943)... kidney dialysis machine (1944)... atomic bomb (1945)... microwave (1946)... 1st mobile phone (1947)... Frisbee (1948)... cake mix (1949)... diet soda and bar codes and the hydrogen bomb (1952)... black box-flight recorder (1953)... the pill (1954)... computer modem and the Hula Hoop (1958)... pacemakers (1959)... Valium and non-dairy creamer (1961)... audio cassettes and Spacewar, 1st computer video game (1962)... BASIC (1964)... astroturf (1965)... computer mouse (1968)... the ATM and artificial hearts (1969)... dot-matrix printer and LCD (1971)... word processor and Pong (1972)... gene splicing and disposable lighters (1973)... post-it notes and liposuction (1974)... walkman and roller blades (1979)... disposable cameras (1986)... disposable contact lenses (1987)... doppler radar (1988)... world wide web (1990)... HIV protease inhibitor (1994)... DVDs (1995)... Viagra (1998)... iPod (2001)... Toyota's hybrid car (2003)... YouTube (2005)... Wii and the hurricane nail (2006)... iPhone (2007)... smog-eating cement and pig-urine plastic and sugar batteries (2008)... Google Prius and glasses-free 3D and synthetic cells and virtual therapy (2011)...
7. ideologies
...the construction of worldviews... survival... rationalism and humanism of the Enlightenment... relativism and subjective logic of modernity... Marxism... structuralism... psychoanalysis... competition... individualism...
8. opportunity
...you can go for it or you can let it slip by but it never stays there for long...
9. perception
10. relationships
11. my age
12. the landscape
13. the future
... we keep rethinking how it might unfold...
14. the past
...we continually reshape how we see and understand what has happened...
15. love
... we keep learning...
15 THINGS THAT DO NOT CHANGE:
1. the weather
... the consistency of topical skies: the azure sky in the tropics; the grandiose, vast sky stretching over Montana and Colorado and Wyoming; the fickle, seen-through-treetop sky of the Northeast... the repeating seasons... the possibility of the rainbow that will climb through the sky in a delicate shudder after the rains...
2. my thoughts
... always moving... always tons of them... always exciting and overwhelming and comforting... always circling... never resolving...
3. my interests
... to learn, to love, to give, to listen, to experience, to question, to offer, to challenge, to grow...
4. identity
... stereotypes: German: firm and punctual; American: independent, individualistic, competitive, ambitious, searching for the new, perhaps too materialistic... Joke: Heaven is where the cooks are French, the police are British, the mechanics are German, the lovers are Italian and everything is organized by the Swiss... Hell is where the cooks are British, the police are German, the mechanics are French, the lovers are Swiss, and everything is organized by the Italians.
mine: ... quiet and introspective... contemplative and strong-willed... sensitive... easily overwhelmed... tender... independent... loyal... observant... open-minded and open-hearted... that i strive for perfection... that i strive to be okay with imperfection... creative... curious... that i prefer questions over answers...
5. world conflicts
... religion has been and remains at the center of so many conflicts; the "East" still battles the "West"; survival; wars; the very rich and the very poor... xenophobia...
6. technology
... humans always keep inventing and creating and searching...
7. ideologies
... that there is some guiding spirit/God/power/reason/science... the consistency of people thinking with similar outlooks until something breaks it... shared community through outlook...
8. opportunity
...always exists...
9. perception
...that I perceive the possible and the hopeful...
10. relationships
...those that matter endure...
11. my age
...internally, I am still a child...
12. the landscape
...in memory... in dreams...
13. the future
...always racing towards us...
14. the past
...always slipping away...
15. love
...the song remains the same when it is true... my love for you will never change... my love for you is unconditional... my love for you is eternal... it will only grow as we grow... it will always become deeper and stronger... it will be our guiding light and meaning consistently... our constant through eternal change...
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