> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://www.isaacbowen.com/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://www.isaacbowen.com/2018/on-change-and-opting-in-a-meditation.md).
# On change, and opting in: a meditation
20180129
We are constantly on the edge of everything changing (or maybe we are on the edge of every change), and if we don't tip over that edge, everything remains the same.\
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But we are organic, we are home-grown systems of subsystems, and *everything* cannot change in a moment or we would have no identity, no history, no sustaining threads.\
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I think this means that our best hope is to stay open to those flashes of brilliance (and this metaphor requires literal brilliance, as the sun is brilliant), and let the temporary blindness inform our return to habit, allowing it to alter our systems and our subsystems by degrees.\
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I cannot become a different person overnight. But in a year, a month, a fortnight, [my ears ringing and my eyes blinking](/2024/10/14.md), I'll make out your figure and tell you what I've seen, and you'll hear a different timbre in my voice than you've heard there before.\
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(no I did not do shrooms)\
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-Isaac
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Originally sent out via email newsletter, through the now-defunct service Tinyletter
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