Children accept almost any conditions as normal. As we get older we tend to look around and adjust our individual outlook to our culture. And as we age even more and more, we find it harder and harder to accept inevitable change.
Of course, there are different types of “change”.
The most oxymoronic is what I will call static change. It is exemplified by death or big events. An old tree that has been around “forever” is suddenly gone. Parts of landscape, ways of life, friends and relatives, once eternally available, now exist only in memory. Depending on that memory we cheer or regret what has vanished.
Then there is a creeping constant change in daily life patterns. What used to be normal is no longer. How we work or play, for example. What is our typical daily schedule, how vacations and holidays are different from “back then”. All this is usually gradual and we accept it with good grace. Just life.
Finally there is the most elusive and profound, which is trend change. Our expectations, which often drive our logical existence. The job should pay more each year. Prices will remain about the same day to day. Our health will last. Whole cycles and patterns integrated into our plans and imaginations.
It is the last, more than any other, that causes revolutions. If we worry that jobs are going away or food will become scarce or enemies are on the way. When “normal” expected trends change, watch out.
For that often means real daily change may arrive soon.
