Panta rei

Panta rei, everything flows and changes. These Greek words so simple but also so strong together form the title of a book I have loved since I was a young girl.

Luciano De Crescenzo, an IBM engineer devoted to philosophy and classical culture, is the author of this bestseller known all over the world. With a fast, ironic and never banal style, De Crescenzo has given the philosopher Heraclitus the opportunity to express with his words his thoughts on what is the change outdoors but first of all in us.

“I look at a photo when I was 16 and look at one of today. God, how I changed! Then I wonder: but when did it happen? At night? While I was sleeping?”(Taken from“Panta rei” by L. De Crescenzo, ed. Mondadori)

Changing is part of us and we cannot avoid changing. Each cell in our body changes and dies in order to permit to other cells exist in a constant and seemingly infinite process (at least until our life ends).

“Nature doesn’t stop for a moment: it flows continuously under the push of contrasts. There is no object in the world, animated or inanimate, that it doesn’t change over time. […]an iron bell rusts, a rock erodes, a tree grows, a body ages, and so on.<>, everything runs.” (derived from “Panta rei” by L. De Crescenzo, ed. Mondadori)

To change is part of us and it makes no sense to oppose it because it can bring opportunities and possibilities. There is no certainty of this, but human life, because of its uncertainty, is unique.

Therefore we should see only seek to see that range of options that might help us to change, to improve and ultimately achieve the so desired personal “panta rei”. So we can be born as new people and look with richer eyes that vast horizon of possibilities and changes that is life.

Maria Domenica Depalo