I was talking to someone the other day about some aspect of life – I can’t remember what but it probably had something to do with elder care, because most of my conversations do these days – and they said, “We none of us like change much, do we?”
I bridled at that because I’d never heard it phrased in that way before and I liked the way it used to be phrased.
There’s another reason why the statement piqued me, though, and that is that I like to think of myself as someone who is not averse to change. We all do, don’t we? We none of us like to think we’re averse to change, do we? Being averse to change is generally regarded as a fault, isn’t it? It’s a trait that gets associated with very negative words like ‘stagnation’, ‘insularity’, ‘uncreative’, ‘stubborn’, ‘Luddite’ and ‘dinosaur’. I like to think I’m the opposite of all those things, whatever the opposite of a dinosaur is. An antisaurus, presumably.
Today, however, I’m changing my mind about my attitude to change, due to something that happened this week and prompted a reaction that surprised me, and yet didn’t surprise me. That in itself raises a challenging philosophical question: can someone who is averse to change but thinks they’re not, change their mind and accept that they are, indeed, averse to change? Surely the very act of changing your position disproves the position to which you’ve changed. Life’s never easy, is it?
Anyway, the thing that happened was that my wife threw away the kettle. Not, on the face of it, the sort of act that would have had Socrates losing much sleep (had he had a kettle), but then she went away for a few days. Had she not gone away, that kettle would now be part of the English countryside, but her going away gave me the opportunity to salvage the kettle from the bin, de-scale it, shine it up and restore it to its rightful place next to the toaster.
I can hear you saying it now: “There’s a bloke who’s averse to change.” And the thought crossed my mind too. Why was I salvaging a kettle? Was it because I abhor the throw-away society and the impact of thoughtless consumerism on the planet? Was it because I prefer the transparency of the old, glass-bodied kettle and the attractive blue light that illuminates the bubbling contents and makes them look clean and fresh and modern, to the sinister mystery of the new black-bodied one, which is much more secretive about its contents and makes no effort to put on a show? Or was it because I’m averse to change?
Either way, I’m good with it. I’ve decided there’s nothing wrong with being averse to change and every time I make a hot drink, the sight of that beautiful kettle doing its thing confirms my belief. Aristotle said, “Change in all things is sweet,” but he was wrong, wasn’t he? If change in all things was sweet, we’d have the sweetest Government in history, but we don’t, do we? We have the political embodiment of the Titanic, which keeps manically changing its ensign in the hope that it will help to avoid the iceberg.
Winston Churchill said, “To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often,” but that’s wrong too, isn’t it? To be perfect is not to change at all. Think of a diamond, a circle, the face of Helen of Troy, Norman Whiteside’s goal against Everton in the 1985 FA Cup Final… these things never change. Perfection is, by definition, complete. It is locked down. Therefore, change could be defined as the admission of imperfection and failure.
Albert Einstein said, “The measure of intelligence is the ability to change,” by which I’ve decided that he must have meant that as intelligence increases, the ability to change decreases. He probably didn’t, but that doesn’t matter because my beloved is coming home tonight and I need to get my story straight. I need to be resolute, brave, firm in my stance, for there will be a reckoning. I need to be on my mettle in defence of the kettle.
“Good trip, darling?”
“Wonderful, thank you.”
“You must be tired.”
“I am. I could murder a cup of t…”
Ah well, it was only a kettle.
