HRD

That great pre-Socratic philosopher of change, Heraclitus, correctly observed that no man can step twice into the same stream. Simply put: The only constant in this universe is change. But change can come so slow and smooth we hardly notice it--just the comforting flow of the stream. Or it can come in huge globs and glops and rushes.

Slow change is kind, like an indulgent parent. But its misleading and perhaps even crippling, this kindness. Because it lulls us into illusion, into the illusion that everything is pretty much as its always been. And worse, that it will ever be so. Because it won't. And when that huge tide pours in we are caught off guard. Taken by surprise. Our head spun and our legs made wobbly and we loose our balance and our surety. Ahh, we say, yes I forgot. You never know what might happen.

And it changes so damn fast. Life is so short, as we all know but forget regularly. Has it only been two years? My God, when I was in the middle of it, it seemed like it would go on forever. I could not imagine it ever being otherwise.

Lots of things lately: my mother retiring from her job last summer, my father preparing to retire this year. Seeing them change so visibly. For whole stretches of years they seemed always the same to me, like a fabric of coarse threads woven by the constancy of their jobs and residence, covering an ever-changing stream underneath. Then the fabric is torn aside by a big change and all the sudden I am unsure of all I thought I saw over these many years. Maybe something else was going on all along and I missed it.

I swear we do not age continuously, but in spurts. I seem to be the same for a long stretch, then all of a sudden I notice I am older. Since I turned 40 I now see my face changing into my fathers. When I was younger I didn't look at all like my father. But this other face was somewhere under the surface and when a certain age had been reached, all of sudden, there my father was staring back at me in the mirror in the morning. It didn't happen little by little. I didn't have my fathers nose one month and his left ear the next and his eyes last Tuesday. No, there it all was one day, and I swear it wasn't there the day before. Change may be constant, like the smooth sweep of the hands on an analog watch, but aging happens in digital time, jumping from one moment to the next, and the moments are sometimes years apart.

Power is odd too. Have you ever noticed that people have a front and a back face? The front of the body expresses the face we show the world, our self-image and the image we emit for public consumption. But the back of the body expresses us in unconscious ways as well. The contrast can be especially stark in powerful people. Many powerful people have spent a lifetime cultivating a subtle set of postural, facial and somatic clues of various sorts which convey the message of power. But if you sneak around behind them and look at them from the other side you will often find an image which is frail and guarded and uncertain. It is a rare individual who is integrated in their two faces.

And power is truly ephemeral, because it is based on nothing any more real than the agreement of others to go along with the pretense that you have this thing called power. And it really seems to be there until the very moment they no longer believe you have it, and then its gone in an instant.

HRD had enormous power. The most powerful guy in the organization. You could see it in his bearing, hear it in his voice, admire him for the graceful way he wielded it. Then he announced his retirement. He hasn't left yet, but somehow he looks different to me now. Some kind of psychic disconnect has already occurred. Something has changed in the tendrils of energy which linked us. I look at his face and his face looks different now. Some spurt of change happened overnight.

HRD being there like Gibraltar, always it seemed, and then one not so fine day, Gibraltar is history. Which means gone. As in: It once was but ain't no more, and never will be again forever and ever Amen.

How I hate it when I am reminded of the fleeting impermanence of everything. I wonder how Heraclitus kept from going mad. Can you imagine having this awful awareness of the impermanence of things as the central tenant of your philosophy! Its bad enough when it smacks me in the face from time to time, but Christ, that would be like going through life smacking yourself in the face every few minutes--like some kind of self-flagellating Shiite with a western-twist. Not scourging yourself because of some somber misunderstanding of the Koran, but banging your head against every rock you see to constantly remind yourself of life's effervescent stream.