change & hope

there are a lot of things that scare and unnerve me, honestly, from burglars to stephen king novels to the dark, but I think my worst fear is ultimately change. I hate change. (not the nice jingle-jangle hot little hebrew coin kind, the variability and mutation and uncertainty kind that leads to scary words like "different" and "progress".)

I know that being scared of progress is one of the stupidest fears to have, but I really hate the idea of infinity and rushing on to an indefinite end -- which is what I feel progress is. like, the ingenuity of man is so immense that I know people will continue to imagine and create on into the future, but part of me feels that we can only actually get so far; that we can only progress to a certain point and won't be able to go any farther. so I'm like, maybe we can slow down a little and not get there so fast? -- I don't actually articulate this. but that's the sort of feeling I get.

the pressure to continually make original things is another part of 'progress' terrifying to me. (a new iphone every year? I actively don't think about it, because I get stressed.) I suppose I feel like the world can only hold so much or so many, and we're overcrowding the categories of 'things that are' with more. (typefaces. it really makes me weirdly uncomfortable thinking about all the new fonts churned out every day, because don't we have enough? aren't we filling the world up unnecessarily, and haven't we already exhausted the possible design combinations??)

is this weird?

well, probably, but I have these thoughts. really I brought up my overarching fear of change because it's something I recognized not too long ago and think is actually a problem that needs to be fixed. I'm so uncomfortable with change -- partly because it's so exhausting keeping up with the constant happenings of the world in news and politics and wars, personal events in town, larger-scale things in the state or country or world -- that I end up avoiding everything because I just don't feel capable of facing it. how is that being a productive member of society?

fear of change, for me, is tied in several ways to laziness. it means I don't have to pursue making anything better, because it's probably good enough. I don't itch to learn new things or expand my knowledge; I just know I'm going to be the old lady who still uses a laptop with a cord!!! in like 50 years because I won't be willing to learn whatever technology the kids are using in 2067. I feel it in my young bones already.

this summer I want to practice embracing change and new things. new things don't need to scare me. new things, I've found, are never as scary when you actually face them as they were when you sat around not facing them but imagining the worst-case scenario of what it would probably be like. ultimately, change will happen whether I want it to or not, so I might as well get used to it and go along with it. I hate that change is messy; but the things is, I don't have to always be in control. I can let things go and relax -- because again, messy will happen whether I want it to or not, so I might as well get used to it. I can practice dealing with change: a much better skill than successfully avoiding it. I don't want to stagnate, either!

really, what's so bad about something new? I don't want the unfamiliarity, the not-knowing, the out-of-my-control, and -- like when it comes to language -- it already works just fine! why change it? I like it the way it is. I love that we can read the history of english in its words, trace etymology and culture through the yes, inconsistent-as-a-spelling-system inventory of english lexical entries. I worry that in a few generations people will need shakespeare translated like chaucer.

so I remind myself that -- hey. it's going to happen. you can do nothing to stop it, so don't waste your time fretting over it. I may not like the specific "progress" made somewhere, but the world would be boring if it was forever the same. and even in design, aren't we always told "done not perfect"? things can always be better, and I can at least spend my life making things around me better -- changing them.
that's my big thought for this summer: I want to be okay with new. to flex when things don't go as planned, learn to let go of my expectations and fears about the future. there's always hope, so just roll with it: everything will be okay.