There must be a light under the bushel!

To change or not to change 10/02/03

Do we change?
Does life change us?
Or do we basically end as the same person as when we began with life interrupting us a bit on the way?

I was talking to a co-worker at lunch today. He's in his early 50's, and he was reflecting on a conversation he recently had with an old friend.

He and this friend have known each other since their early 20's, and when they first met, he remembered the focus of conversation centering around art, music, film and their philosophies of the world. They had big plans to change the world.

As they progressed into their 30's and 40's, the topics shifted to diapers, colic, money struggles, parenting, and how to survive to the next day.

Now in his 50's, his conversation with his friend has become even more practical. They can share all the new information they've learned about health and medicine, and their comparisons on the slow downslide of their once strong and energetic bodies has become their most repeated focus.

We laughed at the changes in life and wondered at the absurdities of the cycle. It wasn't until I was driving home that I wondered, did those philosophies of his change, or did the importance of new elements in his life just make them seem less important?