Fragility

Xavier Le Pichon is a French geophysicist who is known for his work on Tetonic plates. But in a recent interview, he also spoke about the true fragility of the human existence. It is a vital reminder that everything about us is fragile. Building on yesterday's meditation on impermanence, is the step towards understanding that impermanence applies to each of us as well. There is nothing about any one of us that has any sense of permanence.

In many ways, that is well understood in our societies but perhaps not in the way we might hope for. There are myriads of programs, products, books, videos which are all designed to change who we are. We can become fitter, more beautiful, more sculpted, better dressed. Thus, we seem to accept that we are impermanent. We even accept that, as we age, things change.

What happens when we think of change though as being about the fragility of our existence? Does it create quite a different understanding? Does it open up that we are on this earth for but a second in time? If so, then what we do at this very moment matters as it is the only thing we can be wholly within.

I saw me in the mirror

 But it was not the same me

I looked away and then looked back

Even in the few seconds there was something different

Each time I did this there was always change

It was me but me was never the same

I walked the path I had done many times before

I knew each tree, each root that stuck out

The lines, the curves, the bumps were so familiar

But each day I would walk the path

I found something new

It was the same path but it was never the same

© Peter Choate 2016