<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=477503" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The River of Permanence</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">It is not possible to step <br>Into the same river twice, <br>Said Heraclitus of Ephesus.<br>Since other and yet other waters<br>Keep flowing on, <br>The river is never the same.<br>And like the river, <br>Everything in the world<br>Is in constant change and flux.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Nonsense! Retorted Parmenides<br>Of Elea. Nothing is in flux.<br>Things never change, he said, <br>The world is permanent.<br>Objects of thought and speech<br>Must exist all the time.<br>They cannot change<br>Because change consists in<br>Things coming into being, <br>Or ceasing to exist; <br>Whereas words have<br>An immutable meaning.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Of course a table differs from a chair<br>Parmenides continued, <br>And so does the nightingale<br>From the elephant.<br>Or the land from the sky.<br>However, <br>We live in an illusionary world. <br>Things only appear to be different.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And mind you, <br>There are no opposites in the world.<br>For warm means merely not cold<br>And dark means no light.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">More than a century later, <br>Aristotle scratched his head rumbling: <br>Is not this talk a next door to madness? <br>After all even a lunatic<br>Would not confuse fire with ice.<br>How can one argue, <br>From thought and language<br>As a frame of reference<br>To the world at large? <br>How can one reconcile<br>The existential with the copulative? <br>The past with the future? <br>Tell us Parmenides, <br>How can Socrates be alive<br>If he is dead? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yet Parmenides <br>Remained unperturbed and smiled.<br>Your logic, Aristotle, is not flawless.<br>It does not hold water.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Look: <br>On a deeper level of reality<br>Things are always the same, <br>Belonging to an ultimately <br>Homogeneous cosmos.<br>In the final analysis<br>There is neither past nor future<br>Only an eternal present.<br>When you refer to Socrates<br>Your memory unfolds <br>Not in the past but in the present.<br>Your recollection happens now, <br>Right in this moment, <br>Immortalizing him.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Paul+Hartal">Paul Hartal</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=477503" data-title="The River of Permanence de Paul Hartal" data-description="It is not possible to step Into the same river twice, Said Heraclitus of Ephesus. Since other and yet other waters Keep flowing on, The river is never the same. And like the river, Everything in the world Is in constant change and flux. Nonse..."></div> </div> </div>

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