Impermanence and the Death of an Ego

Impermanence and the Death of an Ego

Authored by Logan January 2025

“We shrink from change; yet is there anything that can come into being without it? What does Nature hold dearer, or more proper to herself? Could you have a hot bath unless firewood underwent some change? Could you be nourished if the food suffered no change? Is it possible for any useful thing to be achieved without change? Do you not see, then, that change in yourself is of the same order, and no less necessary to Nature?”
– Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7:18

After listening to a song from the band "Architects" entitled, "Impermanence" I began to confront the concept and self-reflect on my own life in regards to the self or ego and how societal concepts like that of time and our human desire for comfort and pleasure exacerbate our fight against impermanence as the lyrics of Sam Carter, lead singer of Architects echoes, "We're all players in a symphony...That fights against impermanence."   

Impermanence is the concept that everything in life is temporary and constantly changing. It reminds us that nothing lasts forever—whether it’s emotions, situations, or physical things—and this natural cycle is a fundamental part of existence. When we embrace this concept it should bring about solace because it means that hard times, peril, pain, struggle are all temporary. These trials can also bring about positive change as well. However, the rejection of this truth or axiom of impermanence arouses fear, anger, and bitterness because just as pain and displeasure are temporary, so too are things the human body and ego crave, such as physical pleasure, material items, and alike. One must come to terms with the fact that you cannot have yin with yang, light without darkness, heat without cold and so forth and throughout life your will go through cycles of ups and downs because life and change are synonymous.   

“Impermanence does not necessarily lead to suffering. What makes us suffer is wanting things to be permanent when they are not.”

-Thich Nhat Hanh

Often we look for stability in our lives, when we find something good, something we love, something that brings us comfort we cling to it, we crave more of it. Be it a relationship, a job, a material possession or feeling, what satisfies our creature comforts is what we hold on to. Our dominant conscious mind lies to our sub consciousness in that we believe everything will go on like it has forever, but the subconscious knows the truth that nothing lasts forever. The ego hates this truth and the battle between the two concepts ensues. If one fails to accept this concept and confront it, some may be paralyzed by fear as the lyrics of the song suggest, "'Cause those afraid to die will never truly live." Death is the ultimate change or transition and a common human phobia that many people do not wish to face or accept. Not accepting this inevitable fate and clinging to familiarity causes so many people to not live life because they are afraid of the unknown, scared to be injured, scared to take a risk, scared to try something new, sacred to sacrifice comfort, sacred to be embarrassed and bold. Impermanence can rescue a person from this crippling fear and allow people to take their fate back into their own hands.

I am not discounting the aforementioned subjects (possessions, relationships, jobs etc.) or assigning them a negative quality as they are part of our “reality” and our experience. The lesson here is not to dwell on preservation of such things as they will come and go as will we too. We need to have gratitude for the people and things in our life, but accept the fact that change will happen and people and things will come and go in this reality. This change is natural and will bring about good in the end although it may not always appear as such in the given moment.

The stoics were of similar thought, that our fear and anxiety stems from dwelling on the future, an unknown, and not being present in the moment fretting about preserving what the ego has created can cripple a person from reaching their full evolutionary potential. Clinging to the past impedes growth and worrying about the future destroys the value of the moment.

Why Impermanence?   

When evaluating the concept of impermanence in my own life, looking at the remnants of my past, I had to ask myself; looking at segments or chapters of my life would I really want those stages or periods of time to last forever? Sure I had some good times in the past, relationships and people I miss but to sacrifice the present for an eternity of a part of my past, I would have to say no to the stagnation if the opportunity could be manifested. Change is the natural order of things, and without change there is no growth, no new knowledge procured, no wisdom gained, in other words no forward movement towards our next evolution.  How does steel become hardened? It goes through the fire of change. As too must our consciousness endure and go through change, it is all part of the process, and that process is life.

Ego craves comfort. That comfort zone is where we feel our best, where we feel safe but it is a false sense of security, because even the ego cannot defend against the inevitable change that is coming. So kill the ego and embrace the moment and whatever comes your way. Work it for good and try to maintain a positive outlook on the experience whatever it may be. Seek solutions to problems and take a step back to see the whole picture and watch as the change transforms your life into a metaphorical Arizona Grand Canyon full of beauty, depth and turns carving deeper into the tapestry of the soil transforming the canvas little by little with every passing moment.  

Without impermanence everyday would look like a scene from the 80’s comedy “Ground Hog’s Day” where everything repeats, if this was the case insanity would ensue as the human experience craves change and challenge. Life is a never ending saga like a tale of a hero’s journey after the happy ending a new villain arises and the journey continues into sequel and so on.  

Time, Time Everywhere but not a moment to Spare

Another potential mental block to change as alluded to earlier is our concept of time. Society looks at time as a linear concept, with a beginning and an end and as it pertains to our own lives it is regarded as having a finite span. Which, through observation the avatar body we inhabit does but in keeping with the concept of impermanence what we call our consciousness I believe is ever evolving, ever changing and time does not exist, in the way we think of it. Without diving too deep down the quantum rabbit hole, time is an illusion and nonbinding. What I mean is that people are often pigeon holed into the rat race, that they have a certain amount of time here on earth to accomplish the things society tells them they should, a big house with white picket fence, spouse, 2.5 children, new sports car, boat, and now ten thousand followers on whatever social media platform. People get focused on the results and not the journey as if there is a race against the proverbial hour glass with a minute amount of sand left in it, all racing to accomplish their artificial tasks when in reality time is infinite, and so are we. The pressures we impose on ourselves are often self-imposed, superficial and without any real consequence. I believe this external (society) or sometimes internal (self) notion of time makes us fear impermanence because people may believe whatever time they have here on earth is it and the ego says “I better preserve and protect what I have now and enjoy it as long as I can” while neglecting to except that regardless of what we do life will change. Just as every star burns out and a new one is created and as a river carves a new canyon, as above, so below, our lives will always be subject to change, this the nature of the universe, which is our nature, it is our eternity and destiny to experience all possibilities. This posits the many minds / worlds theory, but I begin to digress. Taking another page from stoic philosophy we may not be able to control some of the changes that take place in life but we can control how we react to them and what light we perceive things to be. We can also control what and how we attract into our life to another degree with what we manifest with our thoughts, but that is another subject for another time.

Impermanence and Physical Death 

Final intrusive thoughts on the subject that do not necessarily pertain to the thesis statement but I have included anyways:

Following the same logic of impermanence, death would not be permanent either. A concept embodied by the Triskelion of life, death and rebirth action cycle or found in the concept of reincarnation. 

Taking the concepts from classical physics, in the first law of thermodynamics, energy cannot be created nor destroyed would seem to be a permanent concept, however the law continues, stating that it "can only be transformed from one form to another." This transformation or change is the next evolution of consciousness, the next dimension or evolution of our part in the bigger picture. 

I was doing extensive research on the "NDE" or near death experience and recall reading something that resonated with me, to paraphrase; the only things we can take with us when we leave this place are love and knowledge. With this in mind, and knowing nothing is permanent and we will undergo change throughout our entire lives into the next one, perhaps this is where we should put our stock in. Both the concepts of love and knowledge are impermanent in the temporal field but I believe they compound and grow as we go through,  “This holy reality, this holy experience…spinning, weaving round each new experience…” to quote the song Parabola from Tool.