The Way We Are
At first it seemed there was just the spirit of sameness. The spirit of togetherness was all we knew. All the bits of everything that ever was and ever will be, all the bits of you and me, was all together and the same.
But the spirit of change was there. The spirit of creative destruction lurked. That disruptive spirit changed us just oh so slightly. It was enough. All the bits of everything that ever was and ever will be, all the bits of you and me, started to spread out and did it quickly.
It was an explosion. Bits of everything going everywhere and going there fast in a big bang.
But the spirit of togetherness was still with us. Bits of everything started to clump together like the last pieces of cereal in milk. The big clumps got so close together that they got really hot and really heavy. Smaller clumps around them clumped into balls and followed the larger clumps around.
All the bits of everything that ever was and ever will be, all the bits of you and me, were clumped into stars and planets and solar systems and galaxies.
The spirit of change was still there. Some of the stars got too big and exploded. Some of the planets gots holes in them and magma and gases came out.
On at least one of the planets, made of a few of the bits of everything that ever was and ever will be, including all the bits of you and me, something different happened. The spirit of change changed a thing, and that thing embodied the spirit of sameness. That thing made other things that were just like itself. It made more and more. It was life.
This life was made of a very few of the bits of everything that ever was and ever will be, including all the bits of you and me. It made more life like itself, but change came along and broke some of them. Sometimes they were just broken, but sometimes they were something different that also made more life like themselves.
Togetherness was still with the different kinds of life and some of them learned to work together. The spirit of togetherness was also the spirit of cooperation.
Still the spirit of change was there and all the different kinds of life worked with and on each other. Sometimes life broke other life, sometimes it made something new and sometimes it stayed the same.
Change was unrelenting. There was new life: bacteria, plants, dinosaurs, crocodiles, birds, bees and coconut trees. New life was born and new life died out.
We are life. We live with the spirit of change and the spirit of togetherness. Change brings us new and exciting things, it brings us pain and suffering. Togetherness and sameness bring us safety and love and comfort, and coldness and suffocation and death.
Sameness and change still work together every day in every bit of everything that ever has been and ever will be, in every bit of you and me.
Everything that has ever lived wants to stay the same but also is made to change. Without change, you and me and everyone we have ever loved would never have been. Without togetherness, we would never have loved each other enough to be.
Each of us will love and hate and laugh and cry and live and die. Everything that came before us has done the same so that we could be and we will do the same for those after.
Everything that ever was and ever will be, every bit of you and me and everyone we’ve ever loved and hated are ruled by the same spirits of change and sameness.
You will love and suffer. When we love we want things to stay the same. When we suffer we want things to change. If we didn’t suffer we could never change and you and me and everyone else would never be here for us to love.
