Flux

Dear Friend,

We are currently moving to a new residence which means everything is in flux. This idea of flux makes me think of the writings of the pre-Socratics who said everything is either coming into being or going out of being. Our home is going out of being our home while simultaneously coming into being another family’s home. Our next home is coming into being our home and going out of being whatever it is now.

Socrates railed against this idea because, he argued, one cannot know anything if everything is in constant flux. As soon as you know something that thing has ceased to exist and has become something else. This was troubling to him and so he developed the theory of the forms by which we can have a static objective standard to measure aspects of our reality like a square, virtue, and humans.

Modern philosophers favor the flux model of the universe, but given enough time, their inclination will sway to the static model espoused by the Platonists The minds of great thinkers are like the bellies of large ships that rock port to starboard and to port again while rolling with the gentle waves of the sea with a grey haired helmsman on the bridge.

I suppose these inclinations are much like seasons of our lives. If you had asked me for my permanent address last year I would have given you a location in Maryland, but today I would be inclined to quote Heraclites/Pocahontas, “You can’t step in the same river twice.”