Life, Interrupted: The Unrelenting Truth of Impermanence

Changes aren't permanent, but change is

Impermanence is the nature of life.

Thank you for your patience and understanding. I’m emailing this out about 17 hours later than usual. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

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Dear Friend,

When I returned to the United States in 1989 after living overseas, I was struck by the speed of change.

Fads seemed to come and go almost overnight. A song, a product, a saying—each one had its moment before being replaced by something new. What struck me most was how ephemeral everything felt, as if life itself was moving too fast to hold onto. At first, I found it disorienting.

But over time, I saw it as a glimpse of one of life’s most fundamental truths: impermanence.

Impermanence is everywhere. It’s one of the constants of life and one of the pillars of Buddhism. Yet, it’s often reduced to trite clichés like, “The only constant is change" or "Nothing lasts forever." The Spanish have a saying, “No hay mal que dure 100 años ni cuerpo que lo resista”—roughly translated as nothing lasts forever, not even the unpleasant. But nothing pleasant lasts forever, either. That part is more complicated, depending on whether your temperament is more greedy or aversive.

I used to believe that if I could get through the annoying parts of life, I’d reach the good stuff and finally feel okay. But I’ve also been tricked into believing the good stuff would last. It never does. Yet I kept thinking that if I could string together enough positive experiences, one after another, my life would feel complete. But would it? Or is that just one more fantasy and lovely idea that comes and goes like everything else?

When I think about impermanence, I tend to focus on external things. But what’s perhaps more unsettling is my impermanent nature. My body is aging, and my desires, needs, values, and priorities continuously change. Even my understanding of what makes me happy shifts. Nothing about me or the world around me stays the same.

Rush said it best: "He knows changes aren’t permanent, but change is.” That line often plays in my mind because it succinctly captures our discussion. Change isn’t something we can change—it’s the essence of life.

As I write this, thousands of Pacific Palisades and Malibu homes are burning. These are some of the most expensive properties in the world, perched on cliffs overlooking the ocean. And while I don't wish to make light of anyone's suffering, not even all the money can protect us from fire. Impermanence doesn’t discriminate.

A friend, Teri Leigh, told me about someone she knows who lived in Ojai, California, years ago until the fires came. Then she moved to Ashland, Oregon, only to be surrounded by smoke. Finally, she relocated to Asheville, North Carolina, where a hurricane devastated the area last year. There was no escaping impermanence—the fires, the smoke, the storm.

Scottish golfer Bobby Jones once said to his friend after a gust of wind sent a drive into the trees, “Well, Laddie, now we got to play the wind too.” The approach isn’t to resist the reality of change but to adjust to it as it comes.

Buddhist psychology teaches that impermanence, or Anicca, is one of the three fundamental characteristics of life, alongside Anatta (no self) and Dukkha (unsatisfactoriness). Sogyal Rinpoche said, 'Mindfulness of death or impermanence is the most important form of mindfulness, according to the Buddha. The reason impermanence exists is because that’s how life is. The nature of life is impermanence.'

He also said, 'Life is nothing but change. There are little impermanences and big impermanences. Death is big impermanence.' I’ve spent years sitting with this truth and still find it simple yet profound.

Intellectually, I understand that nothing stays the same, but knowing this in my head and every cell of my being is different. Some of me still clings to the idea of stability and hopes to arrive at some final destination where everything feels complete and whole. But life doesn’t work that way. There is no arrival, no resting place.

Everything is in a constant state of transition. A child isn’t just growing—they’re also shedding skin cells by the millions. A tree isn’t just alive—it’s losing leaves and bark as it grows. Even in dormancy, things are happening. Nothing in nature is stagnant.

William S. Burroughs put it bluntly: “If you’re not growing, you’re dying.” Bob Dylan said something similar: “He not busy being born is busy dying.” Such poetic phrases reflect the nature of life itself. Growth and decay are inseparable. Creation and destruction are happening at the same time.

When I think about my life, I see impermanence everywhere.

My car gets a flat tire, and the shop doesn’t have my model in stock. A dog knocks over and shatters my favorite Italian plant pot. My bath towel smells like mildew, even though I just washed it. The garbage disposal jams, and I must dislodge it by hand. My favorite Indian restaurant changes ownership and its menu. My car keeps dying due to a faulty cable. A flight is delayed. A key fob stops working, and that battery needs to be replaced. The car mechanic and physical therapist's office stop taking appointments on Fridays.

I go to a meditation retreat and come home with four plantar warts. The weather turns warm after a rainstorm, and weeds appear. A dog throws up at 7:22 am on a Saturday. I search for a document on my computer but can't find it. I forget to brush my teeth. After ripping off the tags, I realize a new pair of pants is short. Uniqlo unexpectedly charges $7 for restocking a returned sweater. My friend's cat panics, latches onto my favorite sweater and tears a dozen holes. My son greets me with a "Morning” one day and grunts the next. I grab what I think is a clean coffee mug, only to find brown rings inside.

Even my thoughts and emotions are impermanent. They’re the most changeable of all. Coloradans say, “If you don’t like the weather, just wait fifteen minutes.” The same could be said of my inner world. My body-mind shifts constantly. One moment, I feel grounded, and the next, I’m restless.

And then there’s death. It’s the ultimate impermanence.

Everyone knows they’ll die, but no one knows when or how. That uncertainty hovers in the background of everything. Even in moments of joy, there’s often a shadow of doubt, a voice wondering when the next shoe will drop.

Brené Brown has written about this. We worry about what’s coming that we can’t fully enjoy the present. It’s as if worrying will protect us from life’s uncertainty. But it doesn’t. All it does is rob us of what’s here now.

Louis Maes, a high school student in France, said something that stuck with me during the COVID-19 pandemic. “Over the past few months, I’ve realized that life will always be unstable. If you look at history, there have always been crises—moments of uncertainty and unrest. I think it’s about learning how to live within them.” I couldn’t agree more.

I repeatedly remind myself that there is no solid ground. Life is constantly shifting. Everything is always in process—coming into form, doing its dance and eventually returning to nothingness. There is no void or vacuum. Even the things we consider stable are in flux, including mountains. Rounded mountains were once jagged.

Susan David, in her book Emotional Agility, summed it up well when she wrote, “The ancient Greek master of paradox, Heraclitus, said that you can never step into the same river twice, meaning that the world is constantly changing and thus always presenting us with new opportunities and situations.”

What helps me is practicing a knowing of “already broken." Ajahn Chah, a Thai Buddhist monk, once held up a beautiful tea cup and said, “To me, this cup is already broken. Because I know its fate, I can enjoy it fully here and now. And when it’s gone, it’s gone.”

When my Italian pot shattered, I didn’t feel angry or sad. I’d already accepted that it would be separated from me one day. The same goes for relationships, parenting, and even my body. "When we see the truth of uncertainty," writes Jack Kornfield, "we become free." Seeing things as already broken "helps us see beyond our illusion of control."

Impermanence isn’t a curse. It’s life. It’s raw and messy, beautiful and fleeting. And it’s what makes everything feel alive. When I stop clinging to the idea that things should stay the same, I can finally see life as it is—a process of continual change, of creating and destroying, of arriving and departing, over and over again.

The actress Barbara Laurenson once said, “The two things people hate most in this world are the way things are now and change.” But impermanence isn’t something to hate or fear. It’s what makes life life.

There is no arrival. Life is arriving. And that, I think, is what makes it so full of life.

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Bonsai, a Shih Tzu Poodle mix. When his dad sits at the light too long on the way to our house, he looks back and tells him, “C’mon, Dad!”