The Wind of Change

Tonight I had a fellow acquaintance of mine ask me what I thought he should get for his wife for their 39th Anniversary. He was perplexed, she seemingly had everything.

In a moment, I answered. He was a bit stunned I had answered so fast with something he had never thought of. He wanted to know more. He wanted to understand why I had said what I did.

You see, with each day comes a new set of circumstances, I explained. With each hour defines a new day. With each minute we know not what the next hour will bring, only that we exist in that moment. And, that moment is important. That moment is a memorial to a time we will never get back. In the next moment things will be different. In our lives those moments all march on, endlessly, until one day they don’t.

These are the winds of change.

The rock band, Scorpions, lamented about the winds of change in a hit song back in the early 90’s. It was a ballad about changing times at the end of the Cold War and the collapse of what was then the Soviet Union. But the notion of wind of change had featured prominently in many works before then. In fact, it was a statement more about the passing of time, more so than anything else. It was about how the moment now may be very different from the moment which follows. And so it goes.

Centuries have passed where people have tried to predict the future, few of them successful, and those who were just happened on luck. No, all we can know is right now, in this moment, and the time which has passed behind us. The underscore here is why this moment is so vitally important; we will never get this moment back again.

Tomorrow will be different from today, just as today was different from yesterday. Our lives are enriched by these differences, because if not for them life would be filled with mind numbing boredom and despair. All the more important to take stock of the moment, this moment, right now.

Once I stood on a train platform in Interlochen, Switzerland. I was alone but for one other man who stood, seemingly happily waiting for the train. I asked him how long before the train arrived, and he sharply pulled out a pocket watch from his pocket and told me the train would arrive in 7 minutes. Exactly. The Swiss pride themselves in these things, everything works like clockwork. In that moment, the man knew everything around him. The train would arrive in 7 minutes. Exactly.

Something struck me in that moment. It wasn’t that a train would arrive in less than ten minutes, but rather that the man understood exactly the moment he existed in. It was clear every moment of his life was defined. In some respects this exacting definition of time seemed tedious; was every day this way for him? At the same time there was a beauty of it all. At some point in his day he would go stand by the lake and enjoy the sights, sounds and smells, but only for exactly 30 minutes, after which he would move on to his next task. He had the benefit of knowing he would spend another 30 minutes tomorrow, maybe at the lake, or maybe in the mountains, doing the same thing.

The revelation of that moment on the train platform was life changing. The only way that man could have known exactly where he was in life was to have an acute understanding of what moment he existed in at any given point in time…and this he knew with exquisite accuracy. And even though he knew exactly what moment he existed in, he didn’t know what the next moment would hold.

By my calculations the train was about two minutes late, which was very upsetting to the man, to the extent he made a point of telling the conductor they were late and he was not pleased. Interestingly, our destination that day was a very special place. The train would take us through Jungfrau and Grindenwald and the famed Jungfrau cog railway which climbs to the top of the Swiss Alps. From there you could look down on the infamous Eiger and many others. I don’t know what the man’s business was, but clearly it was very important business indeed. Once we had boarded the train I never saw him again, but his stature had left a mark on me.

Knowing where we are in life is a very important thing. Not just casually, but exactly. This exact moment is important…because 7 minutes from this moment the train will arrive (or maybe it won’t).

The point is, not knowing where we are in life, and being able to fully appreciate the moment we are in only diminishes our lives. Had a disheveled and rushed man shown up on the train platform that day, things would have been different, but that wasn’t the case.

So what would you imagine the gift was that I recommended for my friend to give his wife on their 39th Anniversary? Of course it was a quality timepiece, a watch. (a Tag Heurer similar to the one I bought for my wife a couple years previous).

Tomorrow will always be different from today, but today we can never get back. Knowing exactly where we are in the moment only helps us more appreciate the…wind of change…in our lives.

Holy crap. I looked at my fit bit and it took me 300 steps to read all this. 😜😜

originally posted by: lakenheath24
Holy crap. I looked at my fit bit and it took me 300 steps to read all this. 😜😜

it took me 3 hours to get to this reply, I’m going to bed now.
In all seriousness, I love that Scorpions song. It reminds me of the 4th grade. Amazing how much has changed.

I prefer China White. All that sissy I miss my childhood nonsense if for the birds.
Now get to bed cuz the early bird gets the worm and time is money.
Which reminds me of long ago, in the good ole days when Pink Floyd created Dark Side of the Moon.




a reply to: ManSizedSquirrel

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Thanks for the interesting post! I have a Tag Heuer too and love it. They're cheaper in St. Maarten in the shops on Front Street if you're ever there.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Probably one of the best OP’s I’ve read on here.

S&F

39 years? Sounds more like a runaway train

Interesting thoughts. See, on me, a watch would be wasted. I'd never remember to put it on.

For me, I'd go the opposite the direction -- a great piece of literature, possibly a very nice edition. Those are things that withstand the winds of change and endure. They're timeless and speak across generations because they touch our essential humanity with stories that are always a part of who we are at heart in our core.

But that's just me.

Thanks for the interesting OP and good thought. Your wife, your friend's and me must be very different ladies.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

39 years should get you a Blancpain tourbillion.

Twice in my life, I have been in a real squeeze to get my wife a nicer than normal present. The first time was when I rented a Cessna 172 and I flew her and and another couple up and down the Grand Canyon. My wife got terribly air sick. She loudly proclaimed, “When we get back to Los Vegas I’m going to spend every penny you have!”

The second time, I booked us a week on a live aboard dive boat in the Cayman Islands. Yet again on the 70 mile crossing between Grand Cayman and Little Cayman she got terribly sea sick. After a few days at Little Cayman My wife realized we had to make the return journey. That one cost me a Rolex.

I think one of the most surprising things my husband ever did was before he was my husband.

I happened to be looking through the classified ads of the student newspaper at college one day, something I NEVER did, and I ran across one with my first name at the beginning, so I read it. I thought, "Ah, how sweet! She must have someone who really loves her." Little did I know that Teikiatsu had booked that ad for me. He'd intended it to be a surprise he could show me figuring I never read the classifieds (I didn't ... except that day).

He also called the coffee shop I liked and made sure they made my favorite pastry that day too and took me there for it.

A have a photocopy of that classified on a slip of paper at my desk to this day.