They Grow Up So Fast...

“It's now 1990. I'm forty-three years old, which would've seemed impossible to a fourth grader, and yet when I look at photographs of myself as I was in 1956, I realize that in the important ways I haven't changed at all. I was Timmy then; now I'm Tim. But the essence remains the same. I'm not fooled by the baggy pants or the crew cut or the happy smile—I know my own eyes—and there is no doubt that the Timmy smiling at the camera is the Tim I am now. Inside the body, or beyond the body, there is something absolute and unchanging. The human life is all one thing, like a blade tracing loops on ice: a little kid, a twenty-three-year-old infantry sergeant, a middle-aged writer knowing guilt and sorrow. (236)”

Everything is in flux, life—constantly changing—must never be mistaken as static. The dynamic nature of human existence is the very element that makes it worthwhile.

Tim O’Brian seems to believe in an absolute truth of sorts, an unchanging constant around which life oscillates, attempting to stray from it slightly but never fully breaking free of it. “Inside the body, or beyond the body, there is something absolute and unchanging,” claims O’Brian. His claim is one based of both reason and faith. He has faith in an absolute truth, but was led to that conclusion through his own self-awareness. I disagree with his assertion because I feel that life is in constant flux — “I cannot step into the same river twice,” said Heraclitus, an esteemed Greek philosopher.

From an observatory standpoint, I have witnessed not only the maturation of myself over the years, but also the growth of my peers. I have watched close friends evolve into who they are today; certainly who they are today is not who they will be tomorrow, and it most definitely is not who they were yesterday. People are constantly changing, adapting to environments and dealing with changes pertaining thereto. When a person is forced to change to in order to adapt to new conditions, or to compensate for old flaws, or even due to simple maturation, change that person will. An individual will not remain the same when it is no longer most efficient to do so, for that would be to defy human nature. Consider how friendships change: some evolve, some dissolve. Without changes in the personal characteristics of the individual parties in question, there would be no such need for changes in friendship. The friends I am close to today are not the friends I was close to in years past, and it is impossible to tell if they will be my friends in the future. Only time reveals the true form of the individual. I have watched quiet, subdued students grow into confident and outspoken ones; the converse is true as well—many students who are arrogant from a young age are humbled by their experiences, changing as a result. Yet again, time is the ultimate catalyst. (Note the irony of time itself as a catalyst, as true as the aforesaid statement is…)

I, personally, have changed only slightly over my years. As a young boy, I needed to be held back a year in pre-school because I was emotionally incapable of advancing at that time. I would cling to my mom’s leg at the beginning of the school day, afraid to let her go. I was weak, feeble. Then, subconsciously, I realized a change was necessary; I changed as was essential to my success. I matured greatly in the year that followed, and then began my actual school career. Since that initial transformation, I have been confident, outgoing, and outspoken. Other than that pivotal change after third grade, I have only matured, but never really changed. Though that may seemingly contradict my prior thesis, I believe that I have not changed because I have not again had a need to, I have not been forced to adapt yet. The last time I needed to alter my person, I did so. Nonetheless, my maturation has been steady and ongoing.

In a world where constant change is needed for progression, the world population does just that. Some of us change ourselves so much so that we may lose sight of who we once were. Keeping in mind that we are always apt to change when the need arises, and are always maturing subtly over time, it is important to never forget how we become who we are. I feel that it is the journey that defines the man; a man is never in his current form, rather he can be defined as the culmination of all of his transformations throughout his life, constantly advancing toward what can be his truest form, as his true characteristics are discovered and displayed over time. Even in dealing with the intentional suppressions of certain emotions or traits, which would lead one to believe that the true form of the individual is hidden, is that not saying something far truer about the individual?