Proverbial Pondering

Have you ever taken the time to ponder (to think carefully, contemplate, reflect on, mull over, meditate on, ruminate on) what you really believe or think about this, that, or the other thing? Pondering is an important exercise in all matters of life and in all the various seasons of life.  Life is ever in the making, growing with each passing day as our experience expands.  We never step in the same river twice, as Heraclitus said long ago, for it is not the same river and we are not the same persons we were yesterday. This ever-changing river and this ever-changing person requires some pondering.

Some people become “stuck” or “frozen” in a particular stage of life, (arrested psychological development), ignoring the fact that instead of being 16-years-old they are now 70-years-old.  This happens to some degree in all of us as we age, and our society actually promotes such arrested psychological development with the suggestion that we all could use a little  anti-wrinkle cream and maybe even a brain enhancer (even if it comes from the Jellyfish).  Many live wrapped up in days gone by (living in Mayberry R.F.D, before iPhones and computers, malls and polluted streams and poisoned fish) rather than living in today’s world and pondering over it and how to cope with it.  Some say this “arrested state” happens particularly to older folk, who live in their memories of yesteryear rather than in their present reality, but it really happens in all ages and stages of life.  The water in the river is not the same water of twenty years ago, as Bob Dylan’s song, “The Times They Are A’Changin’” suggested over a half-century ago.  It is not what you believed  or thought back then about this, that, or the other thing, but what you believe and think about this, that, or the other thing NOW.  Ponder over it.

Come gather ‘round people

Wherever you roam

And admit that the waters

Around you have grown

And accept it that soon

You’ll be drenched to the bone.

If our time to you

Is worth savin’

Then you better start swimming’ (ponderin’)

Or you’ll sink like a stone

For the times they are a’changin’.