What goes round comes around

Lent 2020 - Day 34

From en.wiktionary.org:

Proverb What goes around comes around
1. The status eventually returns to its original value after completing some sort of cycle.
2. A person's actions, whether good or bad, will often have consequences for that person.

The roundness of events, that are said to come full circle. The notion of  anacyclosis - a cyclical theory of political evolution - was devised by the ancient Greek historian Polybius, while Roman philosopher Boethius popularised the Wheel of Fortune (rota fortunae), symbolising the circular nature of Fate. Change is invariable; inflection points major and minor come into our lives - some we notice, some we don't - but do they lead us back to where were before - or do they take us to a higher level?

Does the status indeed return to its original value at the end of the cycle? Człowiek uczy się całe życie, a i tak umiera głupi? ["Man learns all his life, nevertheless dies stupid" - Polish proverb.] This, dear reader, is fatalism and fatalism is dangerous. I see not a circle, but a spiral*. Yes, we come round, but we do so one level higher. We do learn; we learn all the time, but we don't learn fast enough and we don't draw the right conclusions, or enough from the conclusions. But we have a whole eternity in which to learn. There is so much to learn, that it may seem to you that we have learned apparently nothing, but we have. Do you remember as a child thinking: "There is so much to grasp - everything is so complicated - I'll never understand it?"

We are no longer living in the Dark Ages, nor the Middle Ages; Auschwitz is behind us - we must never forget. Nor get complacent. Onward and upward - looking back, looking down, we can see where we once were, but looking up - can we see where we'll be? Where we're going?

The last global pandemic spread through the human species just as WW1 was reaching its bloody climax. Spanish flu hit a population bereft of electron microscopes, without antibiotics, ventilators, hand sterilisers, mass-media promoting good hygiene - and 50 million died. We have learned as a species - but not well enough. Next time - there will be a next time - we'll do better. We've managed 75 years without a world war, we've managed to avoid nuclear holocaust - but we must not get complacent. Nor in our private lives, all 7.8 billion of them, nor as societies, economies, nations. Complacency is our greatest enemy as a species, heuristically believing that because today is pretty much like yesterday, tomorrow will be like today.

If there's a word I can repeat endlessly, mantra-like, it's gratitude. And in a grateful frame of mind we can approach God in prayer, asking for awareness, until we reach... we reach... the Higher - Ground. Yes. And at this moment Stevie Wonder's song is refreshed in my memory, in the pop charts around the time of my 16th birthday. The song addresses the issue of reincarnation. Stevie Wonder said of this song: "I think that sometimes your consciousness can happen on this earth a second time around ... This is like my second chance for life, to do something or to do more, and to value the fact that I am alive." Another great artist touching on the metaphysical journey, the eternal evolution of consciousness.

I'm so glad that he let me try it again
Cause my last time on earth I lived a whole world of sin
I'm so glad that I know more than I knew then
Gonna keep on tryin'
Till I reach my highest ground

*A spiral: could this be the symbol I've been looking for?

This time two years ago:
Winter returned for a morning
[What goes around comes around - same this afternoon!]

This time three years ago:
Globalisation and the politics of identity

This time six years ago:
More photos from Edinburgh

This time seven years ago:
Edinburgh continues to fascinate

This time eight years ago:
Ealing in bloom - early spring

This time 12 years ago:
Swans arrive in Jeziorki
[The same pair are back again this year!]