Ideas and concepts are permanent. Nothing else is.
We are all going to die. Hopefully after a long happy healthy life. But we are all going to die. It’s just a question of when.
Life is impermanent. Money is impermanent. Relationships are impermanent.
Perhaps the trick is just to accept this and stop trying to design life around an assumption of permanence.
It feels kind of empty and unsatisfying to me. But maybe acceptance is the best offer on the table.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
While I agree with your basic thesis, I disagree with your first sentence. Nothing is permanent, least of all ideas and concepts! We, as a society, once thought the world was flat; now we think it’s round. Maybe someday we’ll think it’s triangular. Ideas are vulnerable to alterations in facts, to varying mindsets, to persuasion… They are far from permanent.
Thanks so much for your comment! I actually think we don’t disagree. What you are referring to is the belief in the truth of an idea. I agree with you that this belief can change over time. But this is not the idea itself. World flatness as an idea has not changed at all. It’s just that where we once thought the idea accurately reflected the world, we now know it does not.
Great point.