In his book First Things, Last Things, Eric Hoffer makes some observations about change and revolution:
We used to think that revolution is the cause of change. Actually it is the other way around: revolution is a by-product of change. Change comes first, and it is the difficulties and irritations inherent in change which set the stage for revolution. To say that revolution is the cause of change is like saying that juvenile delinquency is the cause of the change from boyhood to manhood.
[P]eople who undergo drastic change recapitulate to some degree the passage from childhood to manhood, and mass movements are in a sense the juvenile delinquency of societies going through the ordeal of change. The juvenile, then, is the archetypal man in transition. There is a family likeness between juveniles and people who migrate from one country to another, or are converted from one faith to another, or pass from one way of life to another....
Although Hoffer's primary interest here is change and revolution in society (see also his most famous book, The True Believer), I wonder if something similar applies to individuals. Consider two quotes from Tolstoy:
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.
There can be only one permanent revolution - a moral one: the regeneration of the inner man.
Could it be that the inner revolution of personal regeneration is often made possible by a move to another country, joining a different faith, pursuing a new career, getting married, getting divorced, becoming a parent, or some other change in one's way of life?
To me it seems more likely that in these matters causation is bidirectional. After all, personal regeneration simply is changing oneself - or, more accurately, a change in oneself. Yevgeny Zamyatin once wrote that "there is no final revolution", which at the personal level implies that one needs to keep changing throughout life based on one's ever-widening range of insight and experience; indeed, living an examined life requires nothing less.
(Cross-posted at Beautiful Wisdom.)
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