Posted 11:00 AM
Are we doomed to change with the times or be left behind? Is it a human condition to be swept up and away with the rest of humanity out of necessity or stand steadfast to our beliefs in what is right or wrong? And for that matter, who made the decision that something is right?

That's too many questions raised at once, I guess. The issue came to me in my teenage years while reading Neil Gaiman's Sandman series. When asked about Morpheus' death, Lucien answered the raven thus: sometimes it is a matter of whether to change or to die. And there was only so much he can allow himself to change.

I threw the issue to the back of my mind but it is a universal truth that we cannot simply ignore. When we look at the "Great" tragedies we read through school, the tragic hero is always someone who is doomed to change or to die; sometimes they made the decision to change but do not carry it through. Or we simply became too different to fit with our times. Civilization was always changing, and humans are prone to adaptation, accepting and adopting new ideas for our own. The ones who do not don't last very long.

I watched "The Hours" with Eric a few days ago. It was a movie about Virginia Woolf and a woman she created in her novel. Someone has to die, she said, and the poet shall die so the rest of the characters would value life more. And that idea came back again, change, adapt to whatever is conventional, or to die? I discussed it with Eric this morning in a different context. There are a lot of things I could accept, for one, love, and unchangeable sexual orientation. For example, an old colleague (or, an ex-fellow-singer) once denied his sexual orientation, or as we say, was in the closet. Once he started dating men, the world was different. He no longer fight with his other half, for example. There was peace. He was in love.

And how would we explain that? Eric argued that they can "change". Just start being straight again. So what if you're born a different sexual orientation than the majority - force yourself to be like everyone else? A lot of people have tried. Most try for the first 10 years of their adult life. Everyone has something that they cannot change - sometimes it is life threatening, like a disease, sometimes it is their sexual orientation, or simple disbelief in drugs. Most of the time we form a belief system based on denial. Drugs are wrong and therefore it shouldn't exist, it doesn't exist. Homosexuality is wrong, it doesn't exist because it is wrong - it is a pretend condition that can be "fixed" if you really try. That's like telling a bird born with weak wings (try a chicken) that it can fly if it jumps off a moutain. Oh it'd work for a little while, but eventually it would mean quick and messy death.

Everyone has a denial system. What's yours? Take heed that you may be denying that too. But as long as we have our own we cannot criticize others for having so. It is something we hold to ourselves to keep the "self", to avoid changing so much that we alter that essential "self" beyond recognition. But if we must change, who knows? Those who could, will. But then again, there is only so much we can allow ourselves to change.