Tell Us As You Write Your Story: What Will Change?

Something is going to change. Oh, yes. Be certain of it.

Photo by the author

I’m talking about gender transition, 25 years later. A certain change is complete, yet something is always changing. Who we are is not only who we’ve been but who we’ll become.

We care so much about understanding who we are partly because our selfhood positions us to show up and live through more changes. Of those changes: some we choose, some are chosen for us, some just happen. All blow through us.

Something is going to change. Be certain of it. You already know something about that future. It’s already part of you, and you’re already part of it. That’s today’s writing prompt.

Classic Paradoxes of Change

A few old philosophical conundrums:

• Given inertia, how does anything begin to move?
• Given identity, how does anything become something else?
• Given freedom, how can outcomes be predicted?
• Given reality, what’s the point of desiring anything else?
• Given change, when is it obvious it’s been completed?
• Given facts, what’s left to be interpreted?
• Given past, how can we forgive?
• Given future, how can we hope?

Phrased this way, these objections may seem abstract. But they show up in our lives. They present themselves when we wonder how we’ll change and grow.

For example, when we start a new job at an entry level, we may wonder how we’ll ever gain the specialized knowledge we admire in more seasoned workers. What if our managers choose to train other workers but don’t let us touch the tools? Then we’ll be typecast as not knowing how to do those tasks and unable to learn them. How will we break through? And so, already having one job role, how do we imagine we’ll ever shift to another?

Often these utterances aren’t presented as questions to be addressed with an open mind. Less pleasantly, they’re presented as objections meant to interrupt what we’re doing and discourage us from changing. We “ask” these questions when we don’t believe in ourselves. Or…