"Everything Stays, Everything Changes" by MSIH first year blogger Jon Rom

This will be my last post on this site. It’s been a pleasure writing here for you, even if I only had a short time to do so. Maybe you’ve learned some things about me in this last month or so. To be honest, I start all my pieces with the intention of writing about my surroundings or creating a narrative. As usual, I ended up accidentally writing about myself and where I am right now in my life instead. Whoops.

Regardless, it would be nice if you’ve come out the other end of October feeling as lucky as I do. It’s a true blessing to have some free time and then to figure out what you want to do with it. I have a beard and a bookmark folder filled with Batman resources I’ve titled “research”, where before I just had a loose study schedule and nothing to do in my spare moments.

As I ponder on what I’ll do with my empty hour from here on out, will you afford me one last read before I pass the torch on to somebody else? Of course you will. The post doesn’t continue unless you silently agree. Today, captive audience, let’s explore a topic I’ve recently been bouncing around my head.

In early 2008 I started watching a show called Doctor Who, a long running British science-fiction show. The premise is that an alien known as the Doctor travels through space and time with various human companions, righting wrongs and stopping monsters. These monsters, human or otherwise, sometimes get the best of him and he is forced to regenerate, a process his species has developed to prevent death up to 11 times.

This show is deserving of its popularity. There are two major series: “Classic Who”, that ran from the 60’s to the 80’s, and “New Who”, which began in 2005 with the Doctor’s ninth incarnation. While a lot has changed since the show began, certain themes remain. One is that the Doctor is not altogether the same person when he regenerates. An obstacle you must face when watching this series is that once you start to fall in love with one actor’s portrayal, his time is up, and the new one replaces him in a hurry, gallivanting through the stars and calling himself the Doctor.

This has been addressed within the fiction as an emerging internal crisis the current Doctor faces. He must come to terms with ceasing to be. David Tennant’s tenth Doctor has a powerful scene where he registers that he won’t technically “die”, but it might as well be a different person who takes his place. His personality becomes locked away in his personal past, where the rules of time travel bar him from ever revisiting (unless it’s an anniversary special).

While that conflict may sound foreign to you, I say this happens to all of us. Each of us daily regenerate into a different person. We are all cyclically replaced by a version of ourselves that is not altogether the same as its predecessor. We aren’t granted a new body in the process, but we learn and unlearn, we grow and regress, and we transform into different people. If it wasn’t gradual but instead happened all at once like it does to the Doctor then it would probably be equally as troubling.

But it doesn’t have to be troubling. It’s common to fear change when we are on the cusp of it, but once it’s done it turns out to be a lot less scary. This is because certain things never change. The Doctor remains a Time Lord, zipping through reality with his friends in a magical blue box and helping people with his new face and personality. We too keep on being the same complex being, plugging away at living life and interacting with the world around us. We change but certain facets never leave us, they stay in place.

Like I said, I often accidentally end up writing about myself when my original intention is to talk about something else entirely. I keep changing while I’m here in Israel in unexpected ways. I won’t be the same person who left home when I return in December for a visit. I will be altered and new, and so will everything that I left behind.

Then I realized that everything will be a bit different but the essence will remain. My mom will still keep me fed and nagged. My friends will still be goofballs and insist on going to impossibly hipster bars and restaurants. The pond will still be covered in goose droppings.

Even I will be the same kid who left home for his career, just a little more grown up and sleepy. Change is possible without losing everything you once had, even for the Doctor or a doctor to be.

Life is kind enough to give you both the constants and the variables. I think that when autumn comes it is important to dwell on that. Let it calm your anxieties about the future, both about what will be altered and what will remain. The leaves change colors and fall but they don’t stop being leaves.

Everything changes and everything stays. Goodbye.