Changing
Saturday, 30 January 2010.
It’s funny, looking back through my website, to see the opinions and beliefs of a former me. Funny, because I don’t believe the same things now that I did then, spiritually, philosophically, or even simply as a matter of personal taste.
When I look back at my life, two years seems to be the period of time after which I no longer recognize myself. My beliefs were different two years ago. I was a different person four years ago. I am totally alien to my six-year past self.
It seems to me that this is generally true amongst people who always are seeking to better themselves. While there are many examples of this, allow me to select one from recent memory: Bill Waterson. Calvin and Hobbes is widely regarded as one of the greatest achievements of cartooning and of art in a general sense, though I would regard it’s greatest gift as taking deep subjects and portraying them in a way that is graspable by all. But despite such success, Waterson moved on with life; he stopped drawing the comic in 1995 to move on to other things (as we all must), and has only rarely been seen by his adoring public since.
I find it of particular interest that while he is proud of Calvin and Hobbes, as he rightfully should be, he regards it as the work of “a much younger man.” This is also as it should be, but it illustrates my point: we all change, and trying not to is simply at odds with the nature of things.
I was thinking about this recently since I have found means of contacting a designer of whom I am a great fan—through his works, he was one of the people who shaped my life, and I consider myself forever indebted to him for that. But, those works were created twenty-five years ago. How am I to know if the grand storyteller is today the same person? Or, furthermore, if he even appreciates the recognition of his work? After all, it is the work of a much younger man.
Anyway, I apologize for the dross of this site. With the advent of technology it becomes very easy to catalog our works, for good or ill. Looking back, I see most of mine as childish. But, that’s merely the way things are—I wouldn’t go back and change it for the world.
Do you want to improve the world?
I don’t think it can be done.
The world is sacred.
It can’t be improved.
If you tamper with it, you'll ruin it.
If you treat it like an object, you'll lose it.(Tao te Ching, Ch. 29)
