A few days ago I was watching a rerun of House, shaking my head as Hugh Laurie stated firmly, “People don’t change.” I was very opposed to that statement at first, thinking that people change all the time.
We change our clothes, we change our hairstyles, tires, the color of the rubber bands on our braces, computer desktops, and we may or may not vote for it. Most importantly, we change our minds, often without knowing it.
Think about it for a bit. It’s unfortunate but common for long relationships or friendships to end—whether it happens all of a sudden or is drawn-out—something is somehow different. We might claim that the other person has changed, or that things just changed. We’re never specific because we hardly ever know exactly what is different.
To further this point, I’ll ask: How have you changed? It’s hard to answer, mostly because we don’t see ourselves slowly becoming different. Nor do we necessarily see ourselves growing. When we have so-called constants in life (the things that always seem with us, like siblings, grandparents and pets), it’s less likely that we’ll notice the changes that take place. Fifteen years ago, your grandparents were fifteen years younger. But how many of us actually noticed our grandparents’ aging? This is a phenomenon particularly true in children. Think back to when you were a child. If you had grown up with the same family dog, you probably didn’t pay attention to how quickly it changed from a puppy to a full-grown dog.
We regard personal change in the same way. We are constantly undergoing change, and don’t realize it. I am not the same as I was just a year ago because each day brings new information, new experiences and new feelings.
And yet, I am still the same person. Essentially, new experiences build on the foundation of the existing personality and past experiences. A “new” person is never created, even if it seems radically different from how a person used to be.
We just gain a different understanding of the world through experience, which is called growth. A change of heart or mind is not a change of who or what a person is. For example, a religious conversion does not change a person’s makeup and past experiences; it just adds new experiences on. The “old” person does not die. It’s the same person who walks and breathes, but with new ideas and new beliefs. Growth.
So Dr. House’s conviction seems to ring true with me. And it actually aligns with one of my favorite quotes, which is from Lynn Hall: We did not change as we grew older; we just became more clearly ourselves.
For more thought provoking quotes about change.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
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I think what you're saying is true, but you must understand that what Dr. House is saying is that, people, as a race, do not change. Human nature is what it is, something we cannot change. It's very rare to find someone who is willing to blame themselves for everything, they'll point a finger to the closest person. We humans will continuously do what the whole human race has done, as in.. as long as there is someone more powerful or people who think they are superior, persecution will always happen. People do change, their emotions, how they look, how empathetic/ apathetic they are, how they react to different situations and even how their thought process works. People don't change which is so true, because, as a race, we all will never change, racism and sexism will never completely diminish as long as we are all different. What makes us different makes us the exact same. People, as individuals will change, as you said, we grow .
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting! Please correct me if I am wrong; what I hear is this: Though people can grow as individuals, human nature (and thus the human race as a whole) does not change.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that the points you have highlighted about human nature (sexism, racism, persecution, blaming others) are all negative. And if the human race indeed does not change, all of these negative points will remain part of the race forever. I'm sure you realize that this offers very little hope for our race! Do you think that this point of view is true of most people?
If so, doesn't this perpetuate the negative points, and thus ensure that the human race never changes?
The Origin
Yes, it does perpetuate the negative points of human nature, ensuring the improbability of change. That had to be the most intellectual sentence I've ever used in my LIFE. BUT as I was saying, yes it does. We will be able to MASK these characteristics, I mean there are people out in the world that are not racist or sexist, but as long as there is a sense of superiority in the world, there will always be blaming and persecution. Like I said once, there should be more interracial babies because racism doesn't mix well (ie. when you're making fun of someone who's Caucasian and African-American).
ReplyDeleteOf course, you cannot keep the whole world different forever, eventually we will all be one huge weird mess of races that intertwine so much, we'll just eventually be called humans. As for sexism, there will, again, be people who think they are WAY more lucky to be a guy than to be a girl, or vice-versa.
As for most people, yes, this generation and the next couple to come, if we make it past 2012, is potentially screwed. Of course, there is hope that one generation will learn from the mistakes of ALL our other ones, but alas, history tends to repeat itself. And as long as there is free will there will always be the want, the need, the necessity, to be better than anyone else. This want , as bad as it may be, is the driving force of persecution.
In the end, yes the human race (as a whole) can change, who or what it persecutes, will, but that it will never persecute, is a dream. The fact of the matter is, if human nature didn't try to make us better than the things around us, we would be a race that failed in the game of survival. We try to be better than other people to get the job we want, to go to the college we want to, to get that LAST piece of mixed berry pie at Nation's. And usually, we gloat, unless we personally knew the other person, we don't sympathize, then later we empathize by remembering a time where we failed. You looked at the way we persecute as a negative, I turned it and said without it, we would not achieve to be better to make sure we are NOT persecuted or make sure we, in the end, are the better person. Of course, persecution is bad, racism, sexism, blaming, but without it, we would not want to strive in life.