Sunday, September 13, 2009

Bloody Reflection

I will be an irrefutable dork after this but since the season finale is tonight I'm going to examine the question of stability versus permanence through True Blood tinted glasses.

We as a people seek both stability and permanence but one is heathy and the other isn't.

Permanence is stasis. It is a deeply appealing concept. When one looks at the idea of being immortal, never growing old or sick or dying is very appealing. If you were Augustine you could give up sin/fun, or lesser immortals daylight and morality to achieve the deeply sought permanence. Permanence isn't healthy. When things become permanent/static they drop from the world and lose their relevance. Heaven may be permanent but has no hold on what we know. We fantasize about it. We hope for it no matter the cost but permanence is an ailment. Like the vampires who represent it, permanence sucks the life out of us. In striving to achieve it we stop living. Change is life and should be celebrated not feared and shunned. Everything changes, not even the earth is permanent and yet we seek the unnatural.

Stability on the other hand is the key. With stability we accept the change that needs to happen while holding onto a pseudo permanence. What few people realize is that stability is really never ending action and maintenance. Continuing stability forces us to live because it doesn't exist on its own. Unlike stasis which drops from the world, stability forces us to bend the world to cater to it. Such action is fulfilling whereas Permanence leaves us with an emptiness.

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