I was talking to the soldier…
“No, I don’t think people change hardly at all. Think about it. You tell me someone whose basic nature has changed in a way that is significant. Outside of a woman who has a baby because that is a change. There is a hormonal thing there, I do not deny it.”
“Yes there is. A woman who has a baby becomes a different woman.”
“Agreed. There is a shift but even then the basic nature remains in tact. Have you ever really seen anyone significantly change their basic nature? Can you think of even one person?”
No answer.
“Well I put this on my blog today (this was a few days ago). I was writing about how you can see the chart play and the character of a person when they’re a kid and you’re no exception.”
“Me?!”
“Yeah. For example you were in that play… Little Red Riding Hood and you stab someone with a bayonet on instinct. Is that normal? You were a baby. What were you? Six? And what about those kids who bullied you?”
“Oh yeah,” he said smirking. “I remember those two.”
“Yeah you got bullied and went home and maaaaaaade a weapon. You actually conceived and machined a weapon, went back out there and you hurt those kids bad. You jacked them up something fierce. Shocking.”
“Yeah, they never tried anything after that. To me or anyone else for that matter.”
“I suppose not. Bad as you hurt them, they’re lucky they weren’t hurt any worse and you were a little, little kid. You weren’t some teenager. You weren’t some mean kid. You were a small child, you were getting picked on, you were outnumbered and outsized and yet you took those boys out.”
“That I did.”
“So then you wind up in Special Forces figuring out how you are going to get at someone against all odds. And turns out you are outrageously effective at it. You’re ingenious as hell masterminding this stuff so now you tell me about the change that happened somewhere along that line.”
He just looked at me and all I can say is anyone who doesn’t think the man can make a machine gun is wrong. And I’ll tell you something else:
A few weeks ago we were talking about the paparazzi (Sadge publishing) stalking and taking pictures of people as they are dying (Pluto). “If someone were to try to do that when I was in the hospital dying, I swear to God, I would use my last bit of strength. I would use the last little remaining brain power I had to rig a booby trap for those guys. Yeah, I’d do something to the door of the room and when they came in, BAM! They’d all be killed and on top of that I’d have it rigged so it took their picture when it happened. ” He smiled. “How about that, P?”
Seeing as he’s done this his whole life (successfully), I really wouldn’t doubt him on this..
I know many people believe that people change but how often do you actually see it?
Never. Unless illness does it to them.
i’ve seen what at least appeared to be big changes after major upheavals or big events. having a child is one. divorce is another. losing weight is another. illnesses. saturn returns.
i don’t think someone’s basic nature necessarily changes, but the way they express sometimes seems to. or sometimes they get slapped around a little bit by something and get hit with one of those damned ephiphanies…
basic nature, no. People CAN learn though, they can do it right, or almost right, the second time.
Basic nature, perhaps not.
But yes, definite changes occur with childbirth and illnesses, saturn returns, conscious effort, etc. These seem to be more of a change in channel or change in an expression of the same basic energy.
Life in Five Short Chapters
CHAPTER 1
I walk down the street.
There’s a deep hole in the sidewalk.
And I fall in.
I am lost. I am helpless. It isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.
CHAPTER 2
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it. I fall in again.
I can’t believe I am in the same place.
But it isn’t my fault.
It takes a long time to get out.
CHAPTER 3
I walk down the same street and there is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it there, and still I fall in.
It’s a habit.
But my eyes are open and I know where I am.
It is my fault and I get out immediately.
CHAPTER 4
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.
CHAPTER 5
I walk down a different street.
By Portia Nelson
People do not change. Period. Small things about them may change, but the core of their being remains eternally the same.
I remember a discussion about this once before, and I’m sure I said this then but I could say it again. My Mum went through enormous change, and yes she did change.
She spent the first 48 years of her life fearful, paranoid, angry, withdrawn, depressed. She walked with her head down and was extremely judgmental of people…all people. She was also very, very very religious. Not in a good way.
Add about a million details and years of therapy, and now, at 68, she is physically active, open to anything and anybody, she smiles, she laughs, she doesn’t give 2 hoots what people say.
Etc.
Some people think she has changed so much…maybe she has. Personally I think she has come into her own. I think somewhere deep within her heart her true nature was obscured by her pain, her abuse, her religion, her paranoia.
I think she has stripped off all the crud that obscured her true nature (it didn’t give her a new nature).
I’m really proud of my Mum, she’s such an inspiration. Sometimes she says “Oh I feel like I wasted so much time” or “I wish so much I’d enjoyed my kids when I had them at home” but she is who she is and I love her no matter what.
Okay now I’m going to cry, but seriously what a privilege to watch someone go through this.
So I don’t think of it as “changing” so much as I consider it “getting undressed.”
Wow, Kashmiri. I LOVE that. Kind of making me want to cry too because when you see this kind of change it’s beautiful and profound.
I believe people change because I’ve seen it. I do think, however, it’s rare.
I’ve a friend who was an alcoholic. It got pretty bad and she was sleeping around and blacking out. She’s my dearest friend but I’d lost touch with her during those years.
Now she drives a minivan, is having her third (healthy) baby, and is calm, drama-free, grounded, and just happy. It warms my heart to see her like this.
Another friend and I were talking about this and she told me even more details – like how she found our friend on a street with one shoe on drunk coming home from god knows where. It was bad. (I hadn’t even realize it was that bad.) But she quit and that was that.
Amazing stuff.
That is amazing… And yes incredibly uplifting when you are allowed the experiencing of witnessing!
I’m sure you can see someone’s basic character in a chart, and I am sure that the basic character can remain the same and the person can still change.
If we’re allowing for free will, then someone can stop manisfesting their chart in nasty ways and start manifesting their chart in good ways. Few people are all good or all bad to start with.
max
[‘The trick is, is that most people stay with their initial choice.’]
I think it’s possible to change in quite fundamental ways – because i have. Old friends and family can actually hold you back, as they expect a particular reaction from you in a particular situation;) I still belive the natal chart defines you, but as there are so many possible manifestations (positive/negative; immature/mature and all that) of any placement and aspect, why shouldn’t there be room for change? I’m not in favor of generalizations and a view of the natal chart as static:)
Maybe some people aren’t meant to change quite as much as others – and this should be evident in the natal chart:) I have the North Node in Scorpio, with Pluto conjunct Mercury, Venus and Mars, trine Jupiter (chart ruler) and sextile Saturn. I’d have to be pretty repressed to deny the reality of profound change;) (Even if my Moon is in Taurus!;) – but a safe 24 degrees away from the South Node…:)
Still, I agree that “the core of one’s being” (whatever that refers to) could remain about the same. I recognize that my personality today has much more in common with the person I used to be before life happened to me (that is, before age 5), than the personae I hung onto for dear life in between:) (I think I just contradicted myself somewhat, but only superficially…?). Please indulge me, I have too much air!:)
I have an uncle who I pretty much wrote off for dead because of his life style years and years ago. I still am awed and amazed at his transformation and now he helps others who would like to do the same. It’s the only big one I can think of, except for my Mom. She’s still changing though, and Saturn is on her Pluto right now. So I’m waiting to see how it turns out in a few years, it’s good changes, but there have been terrible ones as well, ones that can not ever be reversed. My dad has Saturn conjunct Pluto as well right now and I hope he gets his shit together as well.
Also, in experience a traumatic death in the family this past year it was amazing that afterwards, how little changed. If something that BIG doesn’t change people (who do the same old shit they said they wouldn’t, blah blah blah, myself included, I’m guilty as well) then what the hell will? I don’t know. I’m still working on changing myself, the old Saturn return hits exact next week and although circumstances have changed, I don’t know if I have. I can’t gauge myself. I feel like I’ve failed it.
Yeah, I agree Max. I used to think there was fundamental change, but now I realize the energy is the same only its expression is different. Can look like radical change from an outsider’s perspective, but a closer look reveals a common energy. There are definitely positive and negative ways of expressing one’s energy! Like Elsa mentioned, it can be a gift or a curse, depending on how it is used.
I’ve definitely changed quite a bit since I was a kid, but at the core I’d say my energy is the same. I’m just better at working with it and using it in positive ways. Life experience is the best teacher for sure 🙂
Heather, I’ve always loved that poem. Thanks for posting it!
I’d have to say I don’t think people change their basic natures. I liked the way Max put it best — you can express it differently, but it’s still the same energy.
I’ve seen people go through some of the changes you guys have talked about (my mom quit drinking after 15 years, for one), and although it changed some of the daily activities and thought patterns, it’s the same ol’ energy, same ol’ person.
That’s why we want to find ourselves, we will always be the same. We just don’t know ourselves that well from the beginning. We know but like someone said above we act like we don’t. We feel as if it can’t happen again but when it does and will; we eventually find a way around it. On to the next unknown about ourself. It’s just not knowing yourself at a certain time that makes us think we’ve changed in reality we become more of ourselves everyday. I mean that’s how I take it
i more see people grow deeper into their skin… or peel it off more and more.
but it’s still there….
i think the quality of growth we move towards (pluto? chiron?) is part of the pattern
Commenting ’cause it was linked today on the Elsa’s “wayback” machine:
I believe people can change – with effort and desire and the will. I think the actual effort, desire and will are extremely hard to muster, though, so most people don’t bother or fall back into bad habits.
But, in general, yes, it is possible if one is serious/fed up enough to change.
My vote is that people retain their patterns mostly. Although cant remember what i wrote when this topic came up previously.
One example from my life is a friend who had cancer, had chemo, radiation, the whole thing. It hasnt recurred, she’s healthy. To look at her, you’d think she never had it, she’s healthy, hair is back, flourishing.
Even more, personality-wise, *I* would have thought the cancer would have changed her, made her less afraid or more bold or some other stereotype of what happens when illness threatens you. Didn’t happen though. Same person as always (taurus btw). I thought she was gonna transform and come out the other side a changed woman and… I dont know… write a novel or take charge of her life in some new way, as a woman back from the nearly-dead.
Perhaps this is more abt my expectations than abt her though…and maybe illness is mundane and doesn’t always trigger life changing change. When i’ve experienced trauma as a grown-up, I always thought “now, i’m changed forever! I’m a changed person!”
But actually, once the shock goes away and the grief calms down, I spring back into what i was before
Now I know why Leo is a fixed sign. Leo represents our core and that never changes.
I agree thaat people dont change from the root. But I have seen people change their percpective and reactions to things – {which, I think, its still change but in a different level of how this word is defined.
I am trying to find the word. I believe we -can- expirience innovation, progression, development, improvement , advancement , deepening, growth. But not complete change
Aaargh! I tried to post a comment before turning data back on.
Much shorter version: I had a fruitful Cancer-Gemini type conversation this weekend, in which “we’re already who we are, at all our ages in life” featured. 🙂