I ran into Joan yesterday, she lives in the mountain where I first moved upstate. I asked how she was, and she told me about the difficulties she had had when her parents got sick. “I thought when I retired that it would be just peaceful and easy. But then there was all this change..”

Yesterday, I wrote on the blog about the book of poems I gave to Asher, and my hope he might wrote a poem because it inspired him. There was a message right away from Paul on my Facebook Page, it said gruffly “more books, fewer cellphones.”

I thought about how difficult it is for people to accept change, or to anticipate it. Why don’t we ever expect change, given that life does not stop for anyone, ever? Things change, friends leave, dogs die, parents get old.

Change spawns an ideology in response to it,  I call Old Fartism. I dread catching it.

Tolstoy wrote that everybody thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. Rumi agreed: “Yesterday,” he wrote, “I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” Me, too, Rumi.

Mary Shelley wrote in Frankenstein that “nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change. ” And perhaps, I would add, nothing is more inevitable. If the human mind were all that sharp, we would not find change so painful, since everyone one of us will experience it, just about every day. Change is the big story almost every day.

I have thought of changing myself and worked hard to do it.

I can’t say if I have been successful or not, but my love for my life and my farm and Maria and my blog and pictures tell me that I have changed, and a lot. I did not have these riches before I tried.

I wanted to ask Joan, “what did you expect? That your parents were immortal, and would live forever?”

That the world would stop spinning because she was ready to retire? And what did Paul expect? That the young would embrace our culture and  never create their own? Just like we did. I did write Paul back, saying “not going to happen, Paul. Change or fade away is my motto..”

Over weekend, a man sent me a letter that was thousands of words long. He said his dog had died a year, ago and his world as he knew it died with him. He was begging me for some wisdom that could help him, he said this was change he found it hard to live with. I thought he would threaten suicide. He came close.

I could not, of course, help him. I did write back: I said I was not in the habit of giving advice to strangers or to friends. Dogs do not live as long as we do. They die. My wish for you is that you get another dog and move on with your life.

I never heard from him again. I have a knack for telling people things they don’t want to hear.

When people squawk about change, I often think: It isn’t necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory. I can’t bear to look backwards, and say “my way was better.” I want to keep looking for a better way, and I just can’t do that looking backwards, to me, I might as well stick my head right  up my own ass.

I like May Angelou’s idea. If I don’t like something, change it. If I can’t change it, then change my attitude.

The fear of change gives rise to one of the diseases I most dread: Old Fartism was the scientific name I give it, I believe it should be recognized as a treatable, but potentially fatal disease.  I am the farthest thing from hip that there is, but I have  no plans to be irrelevant. Resisting change is just the first death, the big one will come later.

Old Fartism rots the spirit. Old Farts are the architects of decay for me.

This is a condition that preaches the belief that the old days were better than the new ones, that young people today are lazy and indifferent, spoiled and diminished by smartphones, computers, Facebook and games. Everything that used to be is better than  everything that is. Their password is young people today...

Are books truly better for young people than cell phones. As a book author, I think it’s my job and function to ask the question. Choosing books over phones is a heresy, I can see the mob with their torches coming up the hill. But cellphones are great agents of change like them or not. Because it is so different doesn’t mean it is wrong. The world got into some awful messes during the reign of the book. I can’t know what the future will bring.

Mother Nature can be crafty at times, for all of her troubles. She makes change an integral part of life, but also spawns human beings who dread change and are shocked by it.

The thing is, change is not an interruption of life for me, it is life itself. Paul Tillich reminds us that we will all end, every living thing we see, hear, or know.

While I am here, I will open myself up to change, and watch in amazement and gratitude that I could not be without change, or want to live in a stationary world.