The Flow of Becoming

Imagine, if you will, a river. At first glance, it seems eternal, the same flowing body of water, a constant presence weaving through the landscape. But is it the same river? If you dipped your hand into it today, and again tomorrow, would the water touching your skin not be entirely different? The river’s essence—its flow—remains, but the water is never the same. It changes, moment by moment, carrying with it the past, but becoming something new, over and over again.

Now, imagine someone comes along, someone who knew the river years ago, when the rains were heavy and the banks were flooded. They stand at its edge and say, “Ah, I know this river. It hasn’t changed.” They speak with certainty, recalling their memory of its wild, swollen state. But their certainty is an illusion. For though they may remember the river as it was, they are blind to what it is now—calm, perhaps, or narrower, or flowing more freely. They see only the memory, not the river in its present form. They are stuck in what was, refusing to acknowledge what is.

Now consider how this feels to the river, to you. You are not the same person you were last year, last month, even yesterday. Like the river, you flow through time, carrying traces of your past self, but ever-evolving, responding to the terrain of your life. When someone insists you have not changed, it’s as though they are dipping their hand into the memory of your waters and expecting to feel the same current. They mistake the echo for the song, the shadow for the tree.

But to be truly seen—to be acknowledged for who you are now, in this moment—requires presence. It requires that the person before you lets go of their memory of you and opens their eyes to the reality of your transformation. How strange it feels when someone, with their mind wrapped around your past, insists they know you, when in truth, they have missed the entire evolution of your being. You might wonder if they ever truly saw you, or if they were only seeing their idea of you.

And so, like the river, you flow on. Whether others choose to see the living water of your present self or cling to the river of their memory, that is for them to reconcile. But your essence, always in motion, does not depend on their recognition. It depends on the eternal flow of becoming, which is where your true nature lies—here, now, ever-changing, and always new.