August 9
Take me and throw me wherever you like: there I shall keep my spirit serene — content if only it can remain true to its own constitution.
Meditations VIII.45
Listening mode
Take me and throw me wherever you like: there I shall keep my spirit serene — content if only it can remain true to its own constitution.
In a new place it quickly becomes clear which parts of you were merely arranged. The usual route in the morning, the hour when you normally make your phone calls, the chair you think best in: after a few weeks you hardly miss some of these any more. Other things persist stubbornly, without your tending them.
It is tempting to take this stubborn part for the real thing. But not everything that prevails deserves that rank. Impatience, too, survives every move, as does the tendency to meet strangers with caution first. That something is constant does not yet tell you whether you are staying true to yourself or only to your habits.
The reverse case is harder. A place changes you, and you feel more in tune with yourself there than before: slower to judge, freer in conversation. Have you lost yourself, then, or only now found yourself? From the inside this can hardly be decided, and others who knew you before mainly see the deviation.
Sometimes you only notice when you go back and the old chair feels strange to you.
