more or less the same?...

Photo: Jim Brandenburg

On my way home today, I heard in passing this old tune by Simon & Garfunkel in the air somewhere, and could not help conjuring up the verses that made the song so memorable to many:

Now the years are rolling by me, they are rockin' even me
I am older than I once was, and younger than I'll be, that's not unusual
No, it isn't strange, after changes upon changes, we are more or less the same...

... and musing, once again, on how true and, at the same time, untrue they are.

Our inner experience of time and distance, as well as the entailing perception we have of change and sameness, continuity and transformation, will always remain philosophical puzzles, mainly because we can never look at our interior life from an 'outer' perspective, as it were, or else it would no longer be 'inner'... (though in these tittle-tattle times when nearly everything, everyone is on continuous display, having an interior life of your own seems almost an eccentricity).

Happily (?) trapped within my own foolish subjectivity, whenever I look back on... er... life, I see only a puzzling amalgam of change and continuity, tiny shards of a mirror upon which I glimpse vaguely familiar stills from a film I will never be able to restore to its wholeness. And perhaps this is how it's meant to be (growing old, that is): you gradually learn to live without a master narrative, but accept the at once melancolic and epiphanic quality of fragments, moments, instants - the beyond-repairedness of the mirror. You become more and more open to change, unpredictability, uncertainty, yet keep longing for stability, safety, firm ground.

But, all in all, the greatest and most fascinating puzzle remains: people, especially those that become meaningful to you, and that you choose - because they choose you - as close friends or/and lovers (can you always draw the line?...). Are those you love and are attracted to over the years absolutely unique in their personalities, idiosyncrasies, physique, or just ever-changing embodiments of abstract qualities you have always, consciously or unconsciously, cherished: gentleness, sensitivity, kindness, fragility, reticence, secretiveness, ambiguity?... And to which extent do these feelings and these persons change you or just confirm you in your changelessness over the years?...

The (provisional) answer is: both, I guess - or perhaps none. What a bore life would be without mysteries & enigmas...