Change? I got yer Change...

I love change.

I am easily bored. Boring people gripe my ears. Stupid people, who eagerly grab at anything or nothing to worship and follow or scream and rant and rave about, bore me. I like intelligent conversation, witty repartee, not the sandbox "Yeah? Well you're stupid too, so nyah!" style of argument. I like debate. I like incisive wit, and have a passion for puns, double entendres, anything that proves that my companions are thinking, not merely emoting.

I love the violent thunderstorms and the silent snows; the blasting blizzards and the sunlit spring tumble of fresh unfrozen water freed at last from its bounds. I like the struggling two leaves that become four, than six, then a hundred, the flowers that burst into bloom and then into fruit.

I like change that is progressive, natural; not forced or false or that steps or tumbles backward. I like change that is challenge and thought and effort and work and deed, not mouthing platitudes for the latitudes. I like change that means something positive, not something detrimental. That could include the changes of a shoreline that a hurricane creates, or the change in landscape that an earthquake dictates, or the change in foliage that a firestorm demands. These things can have positive influences, when looked at from a perspective of growth and progression.

I don't like change that suits a personal or political agenda, or demands that everyone ELSE change for someone else's goals. I don't believe that all change is good, even if it is inevitable. I believe that one has to step back, and unemotionally determine the good and bad of change, the future of the change or without it, compare the two, and consciously decide between change or no-change. Thoughtless and/or emotionally-inspired change rarely has a good outcome, no matter how many people wish it could be so.

The two things that never change are: 1) People want to, desperately need to, be empowered. Whether that empowerment comes from forcing others to their way of thinking/believing/praying/living, or from being a part of a group that fights that force, people seek empowerment. Very few can empower themselves, enrich their own lives through their own actions - most insist that by stomping on other people they empower themselves. They are wrong, and can never figure out why, like serial killers or rapists, their latest victims still do not satisfy that aching, sucking, black hole in their gut.

The other thing that never changes is that 2) most people don't recognize a good change, a healthy change, a change for the better. They believe they do, they think they do, they cast about endlessly for someone to tell them a 'good' change from a 'bad' change. Terrified of being wrong, they will follow anyone who sagely or vociferously says that this or that change is good for them. They haven't the self confidence to know what is right for them, much less for others, and so trust others to tell them what is right or wrong. Again, there is that black sucking hole of self doubt in their middles, that they will never own, admit to, or claim.

I'd like to say that I have never felt that self-doubt, but that would be a pompous lie. I have doubts. I have fears, and fears that my doubts are true. These doubts keep me from falling for the "change is good!" scenario, when common sense, rationality, and careful study proves that not all change is good or inevitable. These doubts cause me to think, to investigate, to compare, to ponder, to hyper-project many months, even years, into the future, to determine if proposed change is good - or if it is just something that someone else wants to change, to empower themselves over others. Over me.