Impermanence



"This too shall pass."

-Old biblical proverb


Change is unavoidable. You can't escape it, and you can't stop it. It will strike like a wave you saw coming a mile away or it will strike like lightning...like a thief in the night.


No good times can be sustained indefinitely, and no bad times can hold their grip on life forever. If you have it good, it is best to savor every second. If you have it bad, don't lose hope. Unless you are in the actual hell, your bad days won't last forever. 


Everything changes and shifts, and no rigid formula can predict those shifts and changes, nor can they find meaningful clear patterns in them either. Reality is too complex to be flawlessly predictable or completely comprehendable.


The most important thing to recall in times of trouble, and come to terms with in times of reward, is the impermanence of all things in this reality. No punishment, no reward, no mercy, no wrath, no healing, no sickness, no success, and no failure will last forever in this life. At some point it all ends. At some point, we all die.


If something is made of matter and energy, it will change. It will decay, shift form, and break down. What this means is that no thing that is substantial has permanent sustainability. 


The buddhists called this impermanence one of the "three marks of existence" along with suffering and "non-self." It is, in a sense, a cornerstone of reality in terms of its significance.


The bible often referred to impermanence with the term "vanity." "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity" as King Solomon put it. He was describing how futile and pointless much of human activity was, including all our monument building and much of our labor, when at some point we die, and in seconds all that we build can be burned to ash. 


The book of ecclesiastes is the most definitive source of the biblical understanding of the concept of impermanence. "The is a time to kill and a time to heal." "There is a time for everything under the sun."


Solomon's wisdom was that he knew how futile and vain much of the world and it's happenings were, and how everyone and everything will break down and die. His main understanding was that we should focus on an unchanging, eternal God that wasn't bound by the entropy and decay of time.


As for our daily lives, we should always remind ourselves, for better or worse, of the impermanence of all this stuff. 


"This too shall pass."

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