June 21, 2017 – I had a hunch I’d taken a photo something like this before…..last year probably, and I did, last year I took this photo:
So I wondered what I’d thought about that day and dug back through and found this post. It seems sort of philosophical, kind of thoughtful, but I have no idea what I was thinking about that day that resulted in those words. I obviously had something on my mind, but I will never remember what. In 2015 I took another shot or two of stacked coins, and that post makes a little more sense.
Today though, maybe I’ll try to be a tiny bit more clear and I’ll then know what was on my mind if I ever I come back to this post at some future date.
Change is hard sometimes, and sometimes change is easy. I think it depends on the nature of the change and the state of mind one is in at the time. I’ve always enjoyed change. I’m not a “keep-everything-the-same-all-the-time” sort of person. That’s boring. I’ve taken major chances with my life’s path over the years, and I’m not afraid to change direction if things aren’t going my way. It’s easy to get stuck, but I usually find it pretty easy to take a breath and unstick myself….most of the time. Sometimes it can take a little longer. But there is only so much time that you should invest in something if it becomes clear that it simply isn’t right or that it isn’t going to go your way.
But I can’t stomach change for the sake of change when the change makes no sense at all. When change is stupid or harmful, then I want nothing to do with it and I will dig myself in like a crab in the sand and defend logic and sense with everything I can muster.
Prove me wrong with well documented and defensible evidence and no problem, I’ll sheath my claws, back off, and consider your counter-argument. Fail to rationalize idiotic change and we will be at odds, because a position with no justification is just an opinion, and an opinion based on nothing more than emotion is something I have no use for.
I spend many of my days thinking about change. How to improve things at my sites through change. Changing procedures, changing handling, changing timing, changing technologies. I encounter resistance with some regularity, so it’s my job to be well prepared with rational reasoning on why things should change, and if I can’t do that, then I accept that I will not be able to change the behaviour that I have encountered.
When I am wearing my educator’s hat my goal is to change the way people think about the things they think about. Not to change them to my way of thinking, but to ensure that they look at whatever topic we are working on from an angle different from the one they first encountered it with, and realise that it’s ok to change your mind on something you’ve invested thought into. That’s what critical thinking is all about. And it’s way better than hanging on to a bias for the sake of hanging onto a thought you think is good because you thought of it. Even if you probably didn’t. That thought you think you thought, you probably heard it somewhere else and tucked it into a corner of your brain and decided that you thought of it….and that makes you want to cling to it.
One of my absolute favourite quotes is by Carl Sagan:
“In science it often happens that scientists say, ‘You know that’s a really good argument; my position is mistaken,’ and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn’t happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.”
Sometimes change can’t be rationalized as having any value beyond that of cold hard currency, and when that’s the basis of change, regardless of how negative it may be, it’s never going to be a good outcome for some significant proportion of those affected.
Sometimes you can see change coming like a slow moving train. Impossible to stop, and so much impending carnage so clearly apparent.
I don’t support that kind of change, because I can’t find any benefit in it.
Guess I better start packing up my reference library and find a new home for Audrey III….. change is coming to my office, and it isn’t pretty….or logical….or beneficial. In fact it is the complete opposite of all of that.
Or, in the end, maybe this photo is just about a stack of silver, that isn’t even silver….
It’s up to you to decide how you want to read it.
Still don’t know what I was waitin’ for
And my time was runnin’ wild
A million dead end streets and
Every time I thought I’d got it made
It seemed the taste was not so sweet
So I turned myself to face me
But I’ve never caught a glimpse
How the others must see the faker
I’m much too fast to take that test
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Turn and face the strange
Ch-ch-changes
Don’t want to be a richer man
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Turn and face the strange
Ch-ch-changes
There’s gonna have to be a different man
Time may change me
But I can’t trace time
I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence
And so the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same
And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They’re quite aware of what they’re goin’ through
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Turn and face the strange
Ch-ch-changes
Don’t tell them to grow up and out of it
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Turn and face the strange
Ch-ch-changes
Where’s your shame?
You’ve left us up to our necks in it
Time may change me
But you can’t trace time
Strange fascinations fascinate me
Ah, changes are takin’
The pace I’m goin’ through
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Turn and face the strange
Ch-ch-changes
Ooh, look out you rock ‘n’ rollers
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Turn and face the strange
Ch-ch-changes
Pretty soon now you’re gonna get older
Time may change me
But I can’t trace time
I said that time may change me
But I can’t trace time
~David Bowie
Photos in 2017: 109. Silver
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