Journal Entry #4: The Inexorable March of Time

I’ll admit it. I titled this piece based off a video game character voiceline. I’m certain the quote existed prior to that, but a quick DuckDuckGo search yields no results as to its origin, so I thought maybe the title would not only sound impressive, but also act as clickbait.

If that’s how you chanced upon this post, I extend my apologies. “Inexorable” is a word which here means, “relentless and unalterable”, very much like how we perceived the behaviour of time in our lives. In addition to consistency however, it also denotes a slightly negative connotation: that time moves on, indifferent and immutable, very much unlike how we perceive our lives.

Heraclitus’ often quoted aphorism “the only constant in life is change” is something we take for granted. Everything changes, develops and progresses, including people. Humans indisputably experience physiological and neurological changes as they grow older, developing and regressing depending on where their age. More contested are the ages that these changes happen, but there are some accepted ranges.

These changes also apply to personality and worldview, developing through new experiences. However, negative traits such as pessimism, prejudice, and cynicism are frequently attributed to older people, something I recognized happening in me at the beginning of the year. There are also certainly people that get better with age, mellowing out and becoming more optimistic, realizing minute dissatisfaction is not worth lingering over during…