Becoming

Always changing. You. Me. Others. Time. Events. Facts butting against other facts.


Changing. Morphing. Becoming.


This is what we do. This is what our surroundings do. Each with its own timeline. During our time, and the universe’s, everything is changing.


We make sense of it what we can. It is a struggle. We strain to see, peek, and understand. Making sense of the connections. What have I seen? What difference does it make in my understanding of the world, of me in the world, of me?


My sense of the world becomes mine own. Same with my sense of me. Definitions. Wondering how others define themselves and their world. Chatting with others. Questioning them on things of common interest. Gently asking questions that will help me know them, understand them.


Perhaps they will do the same and come to know me. As we tip toe through this delicacy of getting to know someone else, we glimpse other dimensions of their thinking. Might they think similar thoughts as I? How different are we? How similar?


Those two questions – how different, similar – are time limited. Change quickly shifts facts and reality of context. We know things in context. We know things from experience. We know things from interactions with other people. Each of these things change, too. What was clear yesterday, is not clear in this moment. The then, now and future are always in context of themselves. That changes, too.


Progressions of change produce our becoming whoever and whatever we were, are and will be.

Heavy stuff. Utterly true, nonetheless.


Constantly becoming makes each of us moving targets. It is worth contemplating. It will produce interest in talking with others. Nothing stays the same. Either it changes, or circumstances change, place changes, or time passes. Nothing is truly stable or the same.


This makes judging others or the way they think perilous. Good reason to be open minded and non-judgmental. It is also why public policy is so difficult to create and administer. Nothing remains the same for totally equal application to everyone.


The only thing we can agree on is the definition of what we would like to see come about around us. Working toward those common goals takes courage and resolve. First, we must agree on the ends. The means are always a resource issue to be lived with. That is clerical. The ends, are tactical and strategic.


Let us hope for the future by knowing our true selves and letting others be themselves. Meanwhile, forgive yourself as you become more each day.


December 3, 2019