CHANGE is the constant of living

May 24
10 min read

I want to write about change and how it is the constant of living.

I want to say that rather than waste energy trying to stop it, control it and fight it, put energy into learning from it.

Moving with it; being open to opportunities which will come along, they always do, all we have to do is be prepared by knowing who we are.

I wanted something for myself and thought I had it but then it ended or is in the process of ending (which is annoying but as I say everything is a process)

Rather than change my beliefs I have chosen to accept that what ended may not have been the thing that I wanted and will not close my heart to the opportunity to have it again.

This is how I choose to deal with change. Accept it for what it is and what it is not.

Just because a few things seemingly don’t work out how we thought, it doesn’t mean everything didn’t. I had some lovely experiences along the way and they enriched my life and I gained from them.

Being comfortable with change is most important because it will happen

This is what nature shows us - plants grow and die, seasons change but they come back around again just a little different next time and a little more resilient.

Nature learns.

The UK is a constantly changing landscape - weather patterns dictate this - unpredictability, adaptability, being accustomed to change and allowing ourselves to deal with it, giving ourselves time and space to get used to things, this means taking time to adjust and experience, to learn to know when to change and when to stay the same or to act or not to act.

Acting or not acting is a decision.

Knowing when to act or not act is a skill which comes with experience.

We grow old and our bodies change - they do not die they change into something else (GCSE physics)

Fashions change - they do not end, fashion is change.

Some things stay constant - in nature night comes after day, the sun rises and sets, we go to work, we show up, we eat, we sleep, we feel.

Culture attempts to understand it, or to control it, or to frame it but it cannot stop it

Art movements.

I build change into my methodology in many ways - I change the food I eat, I buy new clothes, or I wear them differently or combine them in different ways, I walk a different way to work, I learn new skills, I talk to different people. I try new things not always because I want to but because I am compelled to and I recognise this a my methodology.

Allowing change to happen - has benefited me so much in my life - working in Japan, making big decisions on what to do, allowing myself time to make the decisions, to find out and to get different perspectives to better equip myself to make a decision. Because being wrong can sometimes feel worse but in fact allowing myself to be wrong is a way to learning. I learnt this formally during my PGCE but recognised it from my art and design school education where I was introduced to the term ‘happy accident’ I have made it part of my methodology.

Serendipity,

Happy accidents,

PDA,

Reverse psychology,

Being wired differently,

Natural momentum

Feel the fear and do it anyway

Get out of your comfort zone

It’s only a paper tiger

Change or die

objects in motion stay in motion

it’s all the same right?

I am stubborn and I am Taurus and I am Macdonald, I have Celtic routes and sensibilities but I have been brought up in an English culture or in fact in a mix of English, Irish, Manx and Scottish. I have freedom and boundaries, I am an Islander, I am painfully self aware.

I live in a changing climate, my world is constantly turning and around it is a constantly turning moon and other planets.

My days are full of movement, physical movement throughout the day, walking, cycling, running, sitting on a moving train, walking up and down stairs and escalators, above ground and under ground, in lifts between floors, sometimes I take the stairs and sometimes I take the lift. The lift allows me to rest and be still and gather my thoughts. The stairs allow me to see an expansive view of the building and interact with people on their journeys and exchange ideas.

The lift involves waiting, the stairs involve pain in my legs and a quickening of breath which requires a little rest at the end but an increase in heart rate wakes me up and energises me yet my speaking is halted momentarily.

Sometimes I force myself to sit still for a long period which brings frustration during the time but positive effects come after - my body is rested.

I am glad I am this way, even though others don’t always like it.

Life is meant for living.

Love is a feeling and feelings change, they ebb and flow and can be affected and controlled and misunderstood but they have power.

Social, philosophical and anthropological thinkers, have theorised change in different contexts

‘Everyday life is, then, an emotional minefield in which we can move quickly and easily from happiness to sadness, from pride to shame, from like to dislike, from love to disdain and hate’ (T. Ingls 2013)

Elif Shafak speaks on the importance of being comfortable with change in society;

‘We must strive to become intellectual nomads, keep moving, keep learning, resist confining ourselves in any cultural or mental ghetto, and spend more time not in select centres but at the margins, which is where real change always comes from.’

If all my friends and acquaintances think like me, vote like me, speak like me, if I only read the kind of books, newspapers and magazines that are in line with what I have read before, if I only follow online sites that sympathise with my preconceived verdicts, if I only watch videos or programmes that essentially validate my worldview, and if nearly all of my information comes from the same limited sources, day in, day out, it means that, deep within, I want to be surrounded with my mirror image 24/7. That is not only a suffocatingly claustrophobic setting, it is also a profoundly narcissistic existence. (Shafak, 2020, p. 17)

Wendy Doniger, a historian of religions, argues that foundational myths are not static; they change their meaning repeatedly over the centuries to address the shifting moral and cultural needs of the people who tell them. She often highlights how marginalised or "alternative" voices take old stories and adapt them to rebel against dominant culture.

Social systems, made up of interacting individuals and institutions with their norms, conventions and habits these too are mechanisms: mechanisms that afford causal processes. Some support desirable causal processes, or undesirable; other make it difficult for these processes to occur. (Doniger et al., 2016, The Natural and the Moral Order: What’s to Blame? section)

Andrea Cornwall and Nancy Lindisfarne when describing masculinity, move away from fixed ways of thinking and instead argue that masculinity changes depending on context and isn’t one stable thing (Cornwall and Lindisfarne, 1994).

Chandan Bose and Mira Mohsini and others have a lot to say on change while ‘encountering craft’

What perspectives does de-colonial method lend to disciplines that motivate them to produce different narratives of craft processes, objects, and practitioners? How does it shift the lens – or in fact change the lens entirely – to look at processes, objects, and practitioners in a different or uncomfortable way? How can research on craft, in particular, offer new avenues to replace the “worldlessness and death of relationality” (Vazquez 2017, p. 85) with “transiciones … Transitions towards a world in which many worlds fit – a pluriverse” (Escobar 2015, p. 14)? Craft today is being “articulated in a broader network of critique” (Wayne Modest in Margaret von Oswald et al. 2020, p. 70). (Cited in Bose et al., 2023, p. 16)

On the history of craft, design and making they describe how ‘The rationale and interest in adopting new materials within craft manufacturing changed from the 1960s onwards. In the 1960s and 70s, changes in consumer behaviour driven by higher household incomes and the reduced need to acquire basic goods prompted many small firms manufacturing craft-based products, from kimono to basketry, to fold. (Bose et al., 2023, p. 49)

Aarti Kawlra, talks about changing the perception of craft (which has long been an interest of mine) ‘The research for this piece is part of a wider methodological interest in dislodging craft from its popular nexus with national culture and to explore an expanded understanding of craft within a transnational circuit of material exchange in the global ecumene. (Kawlra, A. in Bose et al 2023)

Hinekura Smith, writing about change for good, describes how Māori women affected change in their community. She explains

‘If, as the saying goes, ‘the best way to predict the future is to create it,’ then the women in this research created change for themselves and their wider families through their conscious, and sometimes difficult choices, to live a secure and positive identity as Māori. The women recognised that they are both a product of, and participants in, a colonised existence that is overlaid with socio-political and historical complexity. Despite this, they refused to sit back, passively hoping that their children might live as Māori, instead they are active, and activist, in their choices to live well, to reclaim, restore and self-determine ways of ‘living as Māori’ for themselves and future generations.’ (Bose et al., 2023, p. 125)

Guy Debord discusses change in his critique of modern capitalism;

'Whatever lays claim to permanence in the spectacle is founded on change, and must change as that foundation changes. The spectacle, though quintessentially dogmatic, can yet produce no solid dogma. Nothing is stable for it: this is its natural state, albeit the state most at odds with its natural inclination. (Debord and Nicholson-Smith, 2020, p. 46)

He goes on to say about art;

'Art in the period of its dissolution, as a movement of negation in pursuit of its own transcendence in a historical society where history is not yet directly lived, is at once an art of change and a pure expression of the impossibility of change. The more grandiose its demands, the further from its grasp is true self-realisation. This is an art that is necessarily avant-garde; and it is an art that is not. Its vanguard is its own disappearance. (Debord and Nicholson-Smith, 2020, p. 135)

Talking about semiotics in fashion, Umberto Eco describes how clothing codes, as systems of signification change over time. ‘The conventions are not static but change over time, though some features are remarkably long-lived, such as the arbitrary and symbolic direction of buttoning (left over right for males, right over left for females). Eco (1973, p.59) (Chandler, 2022, p. 160) more on this later*

Sherry Ortner, the Feminist and cultural anthropologist gets two mentions here for her explanation of how change happens in society; first with her Practice theory that social continuity and transformation are driven by the day-to-day actions, intentions and choices of real people. And that while people are shaped by existing cultural systems, they also have individual agency. By questioning dominant meanings and changing banal habits, people collectively reshape the system over time.

Secondly, she talks about unintended consequences (of which I am a big fan also - see my writings on Karma) explaining that unexpected outcomes, particularly when different cultural groups come together can subtly undermine long-standing cultural assumptions and encourage systemic change.

'In this paper I try to expose the underlying logic of cultural thinking that assumes the inferiority of women; I try to show the highly persuasive nature of the logic, for if it were not so persuasive, people would not keep subscribing to it. But I also try to show the social and cultural sources of that logic, to indicate wherein lies the potential for change. (Ortner, Sherry B. 1974)

I’m sure Bill Bryson, Eric Fromm, Elizabeth Wilson, Roland Barthes will have more that I could add here and I could go on for hours but you get the message right?

Change is discussed in various related fields of social and cultural theory, philosophy, psychology and the connections which can be made across these fields would be worthy of exploration but it is more than I can write here without loosing my reader entirely.

Probably more on that later…*

I typed ‘change’ into the Google Chrome Browser: (algorithmic search obviously)

This was the first hit (sponsored):

Change.org - Official Website | Start Petitions for Free

Thousands have started and won petitions. Build awareness and support for your cause. Get free campaign support from our petition experts.

This was the second ( AI search result)

change

/tʃeɪn(d)ʒ/

To "change" means to make or become different, alter, or replace one thing with another. It can refer to physical transformations, exchanging items, or the act of receiving smaller denominations of money. [1, 2]

Understanding "change" requires exploring its various meanings and applications:

Types of Change

Transformation: To make something radically different, such as changing your lifestyle, career, or opinion.

Exchange/Swap: To replace one thing for another. For example, getting off one bus and transferring to another, or exchanging a sweater for a different size at a shop.

Currency: Small denomination coins received in return for a larger note, or the physical money you get back after paying for an item. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Synonyms

Depending on the context, you can use these synonyms to describe different types of change: [1]

Evolution: A slow, continuous process of development.

Transformation: A complete, dramatic change in form or appearance.

Shift: A change in direction or position (e.g., shifting your mindset).

Transition: The process of changing from one state or condition to another. [1]

For tips on how to properly pronounce the word and use it naturally in daily conversation:

Other results of note:

Change.org gets the most appearances (both in and out of the sponsored results but only shown here once)

Politics is high on the hit list

Spotify has clearly got its SEOs working for it, as has Taylor Swift - or is that YouTube? (owned by Google - Alphabet so you would hope so)

Crypto invest? - is that still a thing?

I think the dictionary/ thesaurus hits are for me as the algorithms know how much I love a definition search!

Nice to see the NHS popping up too - they get how difficult it can be to deal with change and uncertainty (sign of the times)

Time-to-Change org - also a charity set up to help people deal with change

I thought about putting all this into ChatGPT, both to organise my ramblings into a clear structure for the reader and to see how it changed it, perhaps I will… or perhaps I won’t… either way I want to keep this unedited version for now as it is what’s coming out of my brain via the keyboard and onto the page, spelling mistakes, grammatical errors and all because there is a method in that.

Notes:

Bose, C. et al. (2023) Encountering Craft. [edition unavailable]. Routledge.

Debord, G. and Nicholson-Smith, D. (2020) The Society of the Spectacle. [edition unavailable]. Zone Books.

Ortner, Sherry B. 1974. Is female to male as nature is to culture? In M. Z. Rosaldo and L. Lamphere (eds), Woman, culture, and society. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, pp. 68-87.

Chandler, D. (2022) Semiotics: The Basics. [edition unavailable]. Routledge.

Inglis, T. (2013) Love. [edition unavailable]. Routledge.

Doniger, W. et al. (2016) What Reason Promises. [edition unavailable]. De Gruyter.