In the last few months, I’ve written posts about a) my inability to deny my intrinsic nature and b) my ongoing, daily efforts to create an identity. Which is it, girlfriend? Is there something distinct, unique about each and every one of us? Some intrinsic quality that we are born with, dare I call it a “soul?” Or is creation a constant flux defined by action, foreword motion, change?
The early Greek philosopher Heracletus believed that change is the foundation of all creation. He is credited with the saying, "Everything flows, nothing stands still." Heracletians believed that fire was essential element that defines existence, and fire is nothing but constant consumption. He is the source of the famous aphorism that no man can step in the same river twice: "We both step and do not step in the same rivers." In other words, there is no permanent reality. Change is all.
On the opposite end of the spectrum was Pythagoras (he of the theorem), who apparently believed in a constant, essential universal structure derived from mathematical principals and moral certainties. “Apparently” because none of his original writings survive; the only evidence for his philosophy is the testimony adherents made decades, and even centuries, after his death. Much of their evidence is muddled and contradictory, but it seems clear that he believed in an immutable soul. Life, to him, is not a process of becoming; it is a process of uncovering that which already exists. He must have been encouraged in these beliefs by his mathematical discoveries. "The area of the square built upon the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the areas of the squares upon the remaining sides" doesn't change. It is, was and always will be.
So, which is it kids? Are there fundamental, eternal truths that underlie all creation? Or, are we nothing but change, forward motion, will manifesting as action?
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