About twenty-five hundred years ago a grouchy philosopher named Heraclitus is credited with saying Panta Rhei, or “life is flux.”
By this he meant the only constant for humanity is change. Obviously, this ancient Greek was wise beyond his years. But even the far-thinking Heraclitus could only picture change in the form of his time: slow.
It was an age where for thousands of years, the fastest you could travel was by horse or the oars of a trireme. Social change moved slowly as well. The skills of your grandfather passed on to you, and they were still useful when passed on to your own grandkids.
While political power could wax and wane quickly, the economic, cultural, and scientific life of the community was relatively static.
When change did come, the meal could be digested slowly. Our version is cooked and swallowed like something from McDonald’s. It’s Panta Rhei fast-food style, and we suffer an equal spiritual heartburn from the speed.
Wall Street Journal columnist and Hudson Institute Fellow Walter Russell Mead attributes this phenomenon to a graph called the Adams Curve (above). It shows change over time. Henry Adams created it after noticing great change over his lifetime (1838 to 1918.)