Change
An essay from the public
domain by Theodore Dreiser
Humans, especially as we grow older find it hard to make changes in our
lives. Nothing has changed in the 100
years since icon author Theodore Dreiser wrote the following essay in a
collection of his lesser known writings.
Change appeared in “Hey, Rub-a-Dub-Dub: A Book of the Mystery and Wonder
and Terror of Life (1920).”
“...A slight change in the chemistry of
our atmosphere, so slight that it might be scarcely noticeable, a change in the
odor of the air or the taste of the water, could soon end or debilitate him so
as to make mankind of no import whatsoever...”
--Theodore
Dreiser, 1920.
The most
inartistic and discouraging phase of the visible scene, in so far as it relates
to humanity, is its tendency to stratification, stagnation and rigidity. Yet
from somewhere, fortunately, out of the demiurge there blows ever and anon a
new breath, quite as though humanity were an instrument through which a force
were calling for freshness and change. The old or unyielding die or crumble;
the unwitting young arise to take their places. By this same thing which brings
man into being is he ended before he becomes inelastic and unpliable.
Indeed, Nature constantly replaces her handiwork, quite as in the case of the leaves on the trees, creating newer, greener, sappier things. This is just as true of religions, theories, arts and philosophies as it is of animals, races and individuals. Nothing is fixed. The most convincing and stable thing that you know may well bear inquiring scrutiny, even this law of change. Out of the well-springs of the deep what may not arise?
I often think how foolishly
humanity opposes change at times and how steadily and uninterruptedly it flows
in, altering the face of the world. With how many astounding changes has not
life been visited astounding only because life never seems to be prepared for
the astounding. Our little earth minds, being only seventy years in duration
and wise only by reason of the actual experience which can be crowded into that
time, cannot but view as astounding those larger natural phenomena which in the
endless duration of time come swiftly enough, however incalculably slow they
may seem to us. "For a 1000 years in thy sight are as but yesterday,"
a million years but a day in geologic time. But to a being whose duration is
only 70 years, whose thinking period about forty, how remote they seem, even
impossible!
If one could live a 1000
years the value of change in connection with many things would appear swiftly
enough, and the seemingly astounding would become the natural and even the
commonplace. If one but observes the phenomena of geology and of biology one
may see how ready Nature is to quit one form of effort for another, once its
uselessness has become apparent, to drop a difficult tendency in one direction and
pursue an easier one in another.
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World's First 1000 year old man |
Man says to himself today,
"I am the Lord of creation," but is he? A slight change in the
chemistry of our atmosphere, so slight that it might be scarcely noticeable, a
change in the odor of the air or the taste of the water, could soon end or
debilitate him so as to make him of no import whatsoever.
It might be
unfavorable to man and favorable, let us say, to cats or spiders; then man, a
sleepy stumbling creature, would be devoured by his hungry, pagan house pet and
the theory of his domination disposed of. Remote? So was the rise of
Christianity. If you do not believe this read history, or note what tragedies a
slight trace of sewer gas can produce in your own household, how smoke ends a
corps of firemen, how water, too much heat, too much cold, may destroy us all.
And what star so humble that if it came near enough could not effect one or
another of these changes?
Deep below deep lie the
mysteries, and theories flourish like weeds in a garden or let us call them
flowers, for at times they are so artistic. Arts spring out of the mysteries,
but the arts themselves grow stale if left to themselves. The thing that the
individual should remember is that he is a part of this vast restlessness,
uncertainty and opportunism. Life will have none of anything forever, neither
Egypt nor Greece nor Rome nor England nor America; it will not have anything of
one type of god, nor a fixed code of morals, nor a fixed conclusion as to what
is art, nor a method of living. We build up rules where- with life is to be
governed, and behold! some fine day the character of life itself changes and
our rules are worthless.
Many of us now dream that
there is such a thing as justice, but experience teaches us that it is an
abstraction and that what we actually see is an occasional compromise struck in
an eternal battle. Many believe that there is such a thing as truth, but, if
there is, it is not within the consciousness of man, for he has not the
knowledge wherewith to discern it. There is too much that he does not know to
permit him to say what is truth. Likewise, virtue and honesty go by the boards
as names merely, a system of weights and measures, balances struck between man
and man. They are symbols of something which man would like to believe true and
permanent. They represent a balance he would like to strike between extremes on
either hand, but they are only important to him in his state here. Beyond him
lie the deeps which may know them not. All we can know is that we cannot know.
Therefore, what I would most
earnestly advocate, if it were of any importance so to do, would be love of
change, for by change have come all the spectacles, all the charms and all the
creature comforts of which our consciousness is aware. Life appears to be
innately artistic in all that it attempts, so that we need not trouble
ourselves about that; we can scarcely escape it. If there is a seeming love of
order, of stratification, of fixity, in connection with many things, an equally
unending force appears to be bent on change and variation, so that that something
within us which tends to rigid duty and stratification spells suffering or
disappointment for us in so far as we are unable to counteract it. The caution,
sprung from somewhere, to keep an open mind is well-grounded in Nature's
tendency to change.
Not to cling too pathetically to a religion or a system of
government or a theory of morals or a method of living, but to be ready to
abandon at a moment's notice is the apparent teaching of the ages to be able to
step out free and willing to accept new and radically different conditions.
This apparently is the ideal state for the human mind. Not that anything so
much more perfect is in store (I, for one, do not believe that), but that a
different thing is at hand, always, outside your door, around the corner, beyond
the limits of the vision of even the philosopher and the thinker. To be always
ready, if such a thing were possible, to meet the new and to know that it will
be as valuable as the old that is the great thing. But what vain advice! for
the experiences, the capacities, the tendencies of man are not in his keeping.
There is something controlling, of which we are a part and not a part; there is
a mystery to which we belong yet which will not show to us its face. Only its
impulses burst upon us from day to day and from century to century, making us
weep from fear or regret, or faint with terror, or thrill wild with joy. Out of
the deeps they come the realms we do not know. What is Master? Who? What is He
or It like? Only by the artistry and the terror and the peace and the change
through which it works can we guess, and all names and fames and blames by
which we qualify it are as nothing, save that they brighten the face of its one
outstanding tendency, which we must accept whether we will or not change.
Theodore Dreiser (1871
- 1945) is considered one of the great American novelists from early in the
20th century, along with Edith Wharton, Stephen Crane, and Jack London. Dreiser
wrote and had published Sister Carrie (1900), the story about a young girl's
pursuit of the American dream, from mistress to famous actress.
Other works. His Trilogy of Desire
was based on the life of a Chicago streetcar tycoon, Charles Tyson Yerkes. It
comprised of: The Financier (1912), The Titan (1914), and The Stoic (1947). He
achieved significant commercial success in 1925 with An American Tragedy.
Dreiser also wrote short stories, essays, magazine articles and poems.
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