One of the strangest things about human beings is that we seem to be wired to believe that where we are in life, that the people and things all around us, are somehow their final versions… that everything is how it will always be.  That our homes, our families, our likes and dislikes, our daily routines… they’re all carved in stone and won’t really change much if at all.

Intellectually we know things will change, of course.  No one really thinks they’re still going to be doing the same things with the same people at 78 as they were at 18.  But most aren’t emotionally aware enough to let themselves think about just how things will change over time.  To welcome the vulnerability.

We even think our tastes in music won’t change and yet looking back, we know they already have.  Psychologists have taken to calling this the “end of history illusion” – our inability to foresee change in our lives despite knowing how much change we’ve already experienced.  We believe to the core that we are who we are, who we’ve always been, and who we will always be… and we’re so incredibly sure of it.  That even though we talk about ourselves as ‘growing’ and ‘changing’, that we’re really the same person despite this, and that everyone and everything around us is as well.

The older you get the more you realize that the passage of time isn’t a linear path either; that time speeds up each year, and this perceived reality contributes to this generally vague awareness that things are more constant than they actually are.  The first time you realize that an experience you can remember so well that it’s so a part of your being was, in fact, 20 years ago, you realize that time has sped up beyond your ability to catch up to it.  Most everything in your life has changed since then. Read the rest of this entry »