The Times they are a Changin'

"Change can be so constant that you don"t even feel the difference till there is one - it can be so slow that you don't know your life is better or worse until it is, or it can just blow you away, make you something different in an instant . . . it happened to me."


This is a quote from one of my favorite movies of all time, Life as a House. It's a story of great healing, of relationships and how the mess is so worthwhile, of how life isn't life unless you're risking all you've got for it, of how there are bonds which time may weaken but never truly break. I love it.

The character who gives this outlook on life is the father in the movie, who (possible spoiler alert) has an epiphany of sorts in the wake of tragedy, which leads to his rethinking his life. Though initially his priorities seem to shift almost instantaneously, the actual transformation happens (or has been happening) his whole life.

I think I've fallen into a bit of the mindset of this microwave culture of ours (a term I use without any hint of superiority, just a touch of lament). The things in my own life that I wanted to change had to change overnight, or they wouldn't change at all. I yearned for life altering moments, where you know in a profound way that you are part of something huge. I longed not just for a climax, but for a dramatic climax to every situation.

I find it hard to take things slow. What I sense lies before me is too enticing to not sprint for. But this race of life is a marathon if nothing else, and as such, these slow changes are beautiful, more like the gradual erosion of hard rock than a TNT explosion on a cliff face.

And I think I'm okay with that.