"Heraclitus" Hendrik ter Brugghen (1628)
“You can’t step in the same river twice.”
the power that is yours is always being called into question by polluting enterprises
It’s a familiar phrase with a fine philosophical pedigree and whose ramifications are continuously being dealt with. The phrase is attributed to Heraclitus, an ancient Greek whose name is sometimes supplemented with the epithets “the Obscure” and “the Weeping Philosopher.”
The world is always in flux, ever changing. The water which makes the river – rather than a lake – is by nature always different – so, too, is our lived experience. Heraclitus agreed with his other ancient Greeks that the world was made of basic elements: water, air, earth, and fire – a Captain Planet cosmology, if you will. But for Heraclitus, the really fundamental element was fire because it is so active and alive, changing everything with which it has contact.
So, up your lighter, as they say, and feel this fire. And try to hide from that nagging suspicion that the more things change the more they stay the same…
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