River & Fire Within Us

    If you are interested to know a person who is a deep thinker, a realistic man, an observable man, and a well-known philosopher, I highly recommend, Heraclitus. He is known for having great doctrines in the world of philosophy and one of his greatest philosophies is the concept of flux.  "All things are in flux." What made him say this concept? Maybe, he was just curious about the things around him. Well, I do not know what the proper and precise answer is, but the answer I propose is a river.

    He said that you cannot step into the same river twice. I may feel weird about it. Others would surely react because there seems to be something wrong in this statement. But if you look at it many times, you find a gist of how genius Heraclitus is. He is pointing that the river you have stepped before, is not the same river that you will step on again. We may be returning to the "same" stretch of the river yet the water which keeps on flowing is already different. When applied to life, you may have transformed from that immature little brat to a more mature adult, but still, the same person persists. Something may have changed in you. Be it physical, emotional, psychological, social, etc., but you are the same person you were, and nobody else.  Moreover, when time passes by, you are always in constant change. Inside of you is still the very same person as you were born, you are the same person now, and through the deepest inner soul of yours, you will always be the same person you have always known.

    Flux. If you search the meaning of this word, you find that flux is a continuous series of change, is which transforms a being in different aspects or dimensions. Change is an instance where a thing become different in a way.

    The great ancient philosopher symbolized flux as fire, which fire represents the nature or operation of flux. Fire symbolizes and operates transformation. Fire continuously changes. No fire has ever been static. Something to ponder on: Fire gives something to others. It gives its very self to others just as in a burning wood. As a consequence, the wood transforms to ash. In life, it is just the same with us, when we give something like helping others who are in need, we can transform others by becoming at ease in their problem. But aside from that, we have not only changed others but also us. We ‘Change’ because we become generous in a way.We are also like a fire, we can give ‘Fire’ to others that help them to be transformed as well we transform ourselves.

    

    Fr. Reynaldo Romero, one of our greatest teacher in the seminary specifically in teaching Ancient history of philosophy, told us during our discussion, flux is reality. Reality is flux. Other philosophers may not agree with it. One of them is Parminedes. For him, change is illusion. Yet, for Heraclitus, standing by on his own idea, change is too obvious and is happening in every being. In our world today, it is very evident that a lot of things change. Technology and modern science are witnesses to this generation’s great changes. When we are too familiar with and embedded in change, we somehow could not see anymore the beauty in change. We should bask in the changes that is happening to us. We should be transformed. We have to be like a flowing river, never staying in one place. We need to keep the fire burning!

Date Created: September 20, 2015