The Infrastructure of Life, Part 1
“Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.” [“The more things change, the more they stay the same.”] – Alphonse Karr
If you’re familiar with my writing, you know that I’m a proponent of embracing change through action. Homeostasis – the tendency to live with existing conditions and avoid change – is a curse that paralyzes a majority of the human race.
While it’s true that we live in a rapidly changing world, it’s important to recognize that the daily changes we witness are changes in form only. The real substance of our universe, and thus of life itself, is comprised of universal principles. These universal principles – also known as axioms, truths, or natural laws – form the infrastructure for the stage of life upon which each of us performs.
When the weather changes dramatically, as it has in the past several years, the universal principles (euphemistically referred to as “science”) that cause such radical changes remain firmly in place. Likewise, the economy may change, but, no matter how much mischievous politicians try to manipulate it, the free-market principles that underlie the workings of the economy do not change one iota.
Morally superior political-action groups can create fictions such as “hate crimes” – and even pressure weak-kneed politicians into making such fictions illegal – but human nature is such that people go right on hating anyway. It is axiomatic that a human being’s thoughts cannot be forcibly repressed.
Technology changes on a daily basis before our very eyes. However, our vanity blinds us to the reality that all we are really doing is rearranging atoms. Video games and iPods aside, the laws of molecular structure are the same today as they were in prehistoric times.
This is not just an academic discussion I am engaging in here. On the contrary, it has everything to do with how you live your life on a day-to-day basis. Any civilized religion has built into it – at least through implication – the sanctity of universal principles. (As always, my statement is meant to include the religion of atheism.)
Universal principles are omniscient and omnipotent. Whether they are omnibenevolent is subject to debate and beyond the scope of this article. My focus here is on the importance of living your life in harmony with universal principles as the only possible way to retain your sanity in an increasingly insane world
Everyone is familiar with George Santayana’s famous words: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Even a casual student of history is painfully aware that, notwithstanding how far mankind has advanced technologically, we continue to make the same mistakes today that our ancestors have made throughout history.
Sadly, when idealistic lads and lasses bid farewell to their clueless profs at Princeton, Harvard, and Yale, they have learned very little about the lessons of history. Worse, the pudding heads who were in charge of teaching them likely perverted the lessons of history to ensure that these future leaders of our society will make the same mistakes as their predecessors.
The great Thomas Sowell explained it even better than Santayana when he said, “Everything is new if you are ignorant of history. That is why ideas that have failed repeatedly in centuries past reappear again, under the banner of ‘change,’ to dazzle people and sweep them off their feet.”
Which, in turn, is why the words of Will Durant are so painfully accurate: “It may be true… that ‘you can’t fool all the people all the time,’ but you can fool enough of them to rule a large country.”
In Part 2 of this article, I will discuss how I believe all this relates to you and your ability to lead a full and meaningful life, to provide for your family, and to achieve your most cherished goals.
Until then… think about it.
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