The self bobs on a sea of events; longing to be independent of it, and yet utterly bereft without it.
Roiling, the sea exerts an upward pressure and deforms the self.
The self pushes back in the hope of cancelling out the deformity, and thus exists in a sea of perpetual tension.
Events partially sum to create that which we call identity - I am what I am because I remember Hungary, and losing my first girlfriend, and being a sick child, and meeting Bluefish. Without those things, I am not nothing, but I am critically diminished.
In times of great joy, or great sadness, the equalising force of homeostasis works ever-harder to force the self back to normality - and the outcome is exhaustion.
It stands to reason, then, that the force of homeostasis can only exert itself against change for so long. Once spent, change takes place, with nothing to resist it. That assertion, then, answers the question which has been bothering me for hours: at what point must we accept that a temporary change of state should be regarded as permanent?
When a state characterised by inertia, or loss of interest, or ennui, persists for so long, the only conclusion to draw is that this is the dawning of the new self, changed in a semi-permanent sense. Nothing matters now; there is nothing more to be said, and the wonders of the universe are but a flat, perfect emptiness, with not a ripple or a flaw to stir the flesh.
