The Cyclical, Linear Nature of Things

Can’t stop what’s coming. It ain’t waitin’ on you, that’s vanity.

That's from No Country for Old Men. Lisa and I watched the film for the first time this weekend and found it compelling and enlightening. I mean, wow, What characters! What dialogue!

And this particular line stuck out to both of us. Perhaps because it points at a basic question that we both might have...I know it's a question I have.

Can we do anything?

I have asked the Universe publicly and privately in what way does our path go: linear or circular? Are we to believe that history cycles and some of us simply choose to be salt (and others are without trying), merely preserving the world? Or is history "going somewhere" and is that somewhere more beautiful or more destructive? Or both? Can a possibility even exist?

Changing the World is a notion most of us are familiar with. It's what we're all asked to do these days. And I'm not cynical enough yet to believe that it's all vanity. But perhaps a good deal of it is.

But where it really gets me is understanding myself. Should I expect to "progress" beyond who I am now, moving in a linear fashion? Or will I circulate all my life, with only circumstances change in order to make me feel like each experience is truly unique?

I dunno. But I have a feeling that it's a question that I'll ask most all my life. And I will say that the model of spiral dynamics (that Wilbur points out in A Theory of Everything) certainly does offer a third way that is very compelling, though a tad complex to explain.

Hmm.