Everything Flows

What in SPRING WILL COME had only been suggested through the evocation of the passing of the seasons with their interconnection and cyclicity, is revealed with explicit clarity in EVERYTHING FLOWS, a literal translation of the ancient adage attributed to the Greek philosopher Heraclitus: panta rhei (πάντα ῥεῖ). In his fragment “You cannot descend twice in the same river and you cannot touch a mortal substance in the same state twice [...].” (91 Diels-Kranz) it is emphasized that the world is a perpetual stream in which everything flows, analogous to the current of a river whose waters are never the same. Everything is in flux because it is subject to time and transformation: that is why no human being can have the same experience twice, subject as he or she is to the inexorable law of change. When I wrote the piece, during the pandemic, this philosophy was a great comfort because it allowed me to identify, albeit ideally, a certain end to the emergency. Today I see a different side of it: if we understand to the core that nothing is ever stationary and unchanging inside or outside of us, that every moment is unique and unrepeatable and therefore precious, we are more easily led to live with greater intensity, to exist fully in the present, avoiding that constant and obsessive forward projection into a future that soon becomes unattainable, made up of goals that as soon as they are achieved are undermined by the next ones. Moreover, the metaphor of the flowing river suggests to us how laughable it is to try to stop it with our own hands, that is, how unfounded are the claims of reality control and consequently how important it is, on the contrary, to try to welcome what happens with serenity instead of fighting it: this does not mean taking a passive attitude in our lives but to free ourselves from those negative emotions that, if anything, prevent us from doing what is really good for us.