Life as Flux: A walk with Heraclitus--Traversing Rivers of Discombobulating Discombobulated Discombobulations

I took a walk with Heraclitus today. As I took that first step in the river of my daily journey, with him by my side, I found myself reflecting on how that first step and each one following would present a different perspective, a different orientation, and a different moment in time as I took each step along the way. How each step presents an ever so slight, ever so subtle change in direction. As we walked, we started to contemplate current events, all the news, all the commentary and compelling story lines across our worlds. So there Heraclitus was egging me ever onward, with me fording each step in the river--finding that no step in any of them is ever the same.  Where no storyline we discussed ever seemed to maintain its sameness either as we compared notes about how they meander, trickle and flow. Then as we walked, confronting the heady waters we were traversing, he simply asked—“Ok, so how’s it going?”

I thought about his question for a while--thinking about how I have navigated and will navigate the paths along my journey. I told him that I was perplexed, confused, dismayed and amazed about it all. I told him that in watching the river of life flow by and beneath me, that each fording step seemed more discombobulating than the one before it, with each step I felt more and more discombobulated with all the noise, and as a result my journey seemed filled with discombobulations at every step.

We stood there for a few minutes and he then opined; you know—“there is nothing permanent except change” and he quickly followed by saying “Men who wish to know about the particulars of the world must learn about it in its particular details.” As I listened, I thought aloud about how important words can be. He smiled and in his paradoxical way, made a comment about the unity of opposites. You know, he said “kind of like what the definition of “it,” and the definition of “is” is and all.”

He then looked at me with a grin and said in his self-taught wisdom and perspective on change—sometimes you will be addled, baffled, bamboozled, beaten, befogged, befuddled, bemused, bewildered, buffaloed, confounded, confused, disoriented, flummoxed, foxed, fuddled, muddled and beset by rivers muddied—sometimes by storms—sometimes by others. He went on to reflect on how easy it is to become mystified and perplexed by those who pose with an intent to puzzle and vex. Continue on he said, and remember that “good character is not formed in a week or a month. It is created little by little, day by day. Protracted and patient effort is needed to develop good character.”

We then began the journey anew, refreshed that other steps would be taken, and other rivers traversed taking each new particular step with a renewed sense of purpose. Yet, still, every once in a while as we continued the walk, and as the steps became many, the challenges continued to resurface, the confusing noise and sometime the lack of it kept coming back in a renewed array of discombobulating discombobulated discombobulations.

And while I continued to step along, I found myself saying “Heraclitus, what the heck?”  “Heraclitus, how did that happen?”  “Heraclitus, where is this going to lead me?”

In response he merely introduced me to his friend Lao Tzu, who gently said, “Take another step.”