Change and Permanence
An exploration of identity over time
Change is the only constant
It’s a strange paradox isn’t it.
In life we have very few guarantees, but one certainly is that things are always changing.
One of the reasons I love sports as a philosophical arena is the ease at which we can see classical ideas and debates in philosophy come to life in dynamic action and experience.
The debate between change and permanence goes back thousands of years, to me it’s best expressed in this famous Heraclitus quote:
Physically that’s true. As you age your body goes through a complete regeneration. No cell in your body last more than 7 years.
But it’s also psychologically and intellectually true. You used to belong in elementary school, but not anymore.
So if we’re always changing, the next question when it comes to knowing who I am is a pretty stark one: If I’m always changing, what is the part of me that stays the same?”
This is where sports comes in to provide a unique solution to this age old paradox of change and permanence.
How to hold onto a sense of the ‘true’ you
Another philosophic thought experiment in this area is “Theseus’ Ship”
Basically if throughout the course of it’s life every single material piece of the ship becomes damaged and thus replaced leaving no original part of the ship eventually, is it still the same ship?
It’s a great analogy to how we change over time.
One contemporary answer to the age old paradox of ‘Theseus’s Ship’ in the idea of Continued Identity.
Since the ship is replaced piece by piece, year by year, based on need, it retains it’s original essence and quality. If we had to somehow ‘repair and replace’ it all at once, it wouldn’t.
With this ‘solution’ to the paradox how can we leverage sports and philosophy to know the constant part of us if the only constant is how we change?
Simple, we mine the truth that’s in the training and competing to know deeply who we truly are, our values, principles, and deepest beliefs.
The place of athletics
Sports calibrate the self. They help orient purpose. Clarified aim flows from them easily when practiced spiritually, that is played from the heart with passion and love.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this passage from the amazing running memoir “What I talk about when I talk about running’ by Haruki Murakami and I think it helps explain why athletics are a place of constant knowing in a world of permanent change:
“I think certain types of process don’t allow for any variation. If you have to be part of that process, all you can do is transform - or perhaps distort - yourself through the persistent repetition, and make that process a part of your personality.”
The process of continual training, ‘persistent repetition,’ brings us back into sharp awareness of our internal lives. We touch will power, determination, ambition, desire, fortitude, and excellence.
What these mean in different moments, at different stages of our lives, will always look different. That’s context after all.
But within myself I’m always defined by the same elements. It’s my gut. My intuition.
My heart is always true to itself. I can’t lie there.
I also can’t lie in sports and training. I either show up and do the work or have to fall back on some excuse why I couldn’t make it happen.
I can’t change the numbers on the watch when I hit stop after running a mile. I’m not able to make the weights lighter, unless I work to grow my muscles slowly over time.
Through the consistent changes I bring about myself, physically, mentally, and spiritually, through consistent training I begin to stabilize an understanding of myself, who I am, and who I’ve always been.
I find the permanence THROUGH the change. I locate the constant. It’s the TRUE ME.
Making sense for yourself
So far this article is deep on the concept, and lean on the application.
Sometimes you have to wade deep in the weeds to understand how to not get so tangled in them.
Yesterday I wrote about how to “Be Yourself” by reigniting a long lost athletic identity (read it HERE).
This is how you being to realize the consistent part of yourself no matter how much life has ‘gotten in the way’ and the adult world has ‘changed’ your current reality.
When it comes to finding the consistent truth about your identity and self belief, athletic challenge is the vehicle to travel on.
Things are different now. No question about it.
But the thrill is the same.
The exhilaration.
The desire to break though.
The determination to not quit.
The demand to drive towards excellence, not just ‘good enough’
In a world driven by consistent change, sports are how you return to the signal of your heart.
That’s the true you. No matter how much changes in the world around you, and you change yourself, if you stay true in heart, you’ll always know who you are.
Playing sports you love is a surefire way to remind yourself, no matter how much the changing world tries to get in the way and make you forget.
Happy Training Team