Permanent; nothing is permanent

It's been practically a year since i've last even layed eyes on this little space where pixels lie. That means that it's been a year since i've last written my thoughts out loud, and not exactly coincidentally, also a year since people have left their own comments and thoughts on this site (It would have been both slightly strange and bordering a bit into freaky-stalkerish if someone still continued to).

One year can be loosely translated into Twelve Months, or if you prefer the Olde English translation, Ye Three Hundred And Sixty Five Days. And given the sheer amount of hours and minutes that would have passed within the context of said number of days (My ineptitude in the handling of calculators prohibits me from attempting to enthrall with a very large string of numbers), one cannot help but wonder if anything, anything at all, has changed since the last impression we had of ourselves.

Over the course of one year we could have experienced joy, hardship, curiosity, apathy, enthusiasm, banality, love, heartache, optimism, dread, hope, despair, and a whole shopping-list of other feelings and thesaurus-approved adjectives with accompanying antonyms. Given the emotional weight which each of these carry, it would not be too far-fetched to assume that each must have in one way or another profoundly and irrevocably affected our person. "Do I still participate with the same vigor? Do I still laugh with the same lighness of heart? Do I still see things and people the same way? Do I still talk in the same self-characteristic manner? Do I still act in the manner I used to?" All questions we might have once asked ourselves, and all questions worth pondering over.

But it's ironic then that while each of these questions indubitably probe into the profundities of whether we have indeed progressed from where we once were, they also hint at a conflicted and worried soul--one which is as equally harrowed by the prospects of losing the individuality of oneself. Though I doubt the same could be said with regards to the periods of adolescence and early teen angst which most aspire to condemn to the depths of artery-constricting-jeans and  tear-stained-piss-poetry hell. Nevertheless, despite all our desires to change, to become more than the little we are now, as well as our hopes to metamorphize into that AudiR8-pimping superstar and owner of a very shiny red and gold metal suit, we realize that there are parts of us which we desperately fear changing. For all that talk of growing, developing and becoming, we somehow cannot conceive losing those parts of us which make us, well, us.

And thus begins the precarious balance of trying to change what we hate about ourselves, while yet retaining the bits which we feel make up the person we think we are. As if this metaphysical existentialist tightrope wasn't enough, the inevitability of subconscious change rears its ugly (not that we'd notice how beautiful it might have looked, what with it being subconscious and all) head. While attempting to become artisan crafters of our self, we periodically notice several deviations from our planned blueprints and battlelines. We become altered--to much dismay and annoyance--in a way which was not part of the plan, but being creatures desiring control, we attempt to push back.

Perhaps one of these ninjitsu-and-art-of-being-stealthy-as-cat-trained abominations which we should probably be most on our guard against would be that of simple world-weariness. It's an intimidating sight when individuals not even half way to mid-life crisis start considering everything worthless and balk. King Solomons aside, it seems almost as if national service itself is synonymous with becoming jaded, and that is something no promises of glory and love for country can compensate for.

But alas! Maybe there is hope yet. For now that we've begun the process of taking the sub out of the subconscious, we ultimately attempt to take to task the little changelings in us which evade our notice. One would like to believe that if we could raise our guard against these insidious influencers, only then we would we grow that much closer to becoming what we seek for ourselves to become. And by methods such as these, we attempt, perhaps even futilely, to gain control over our lives--minute existences which are but flung about the expanse of situations and happenings by the jarring multiple impacts of the everyday.

Will you change? Will I change? Only time can tell, but fortunately, he isn't going to tell how we will.

______________________________

Some time ago
I keep losing track over again
All these promises won't turn golden
Until you touch them

It's permanent
Nothing is permanent
It's permanent
We'll be watching your back, following
Indecision has lasted for years

Some time ago
Memories in my head
They're starting again
Speaking fast, still moving slow
Running through the country
Maybe they will find me

It's permanent
Nothing is permanent
It's permanent
We'll be watching your back (We'll be watching)
Be watching your back, following
Indecision has lasted for years

Like a river in Arizona
Dried up before you were born

It's starting up again
(We'll be watching your back)

It's permanent
Nothing is permanent
It's permanent
We'll be watching your back
It's permanent
Nothing is permanent
It's permanent
Time is pushing us back
Permanent