Deep Impermanence

 Many scholars have talked about "deep ecology" in recent years, which was explored by Arne Naess in his philosophies. What it refers to is not beholding nature as an object but as something that is part of us. I would like to extend this notion of "deep ecology" to the term "deep impermanence": an expression that entails a refusal to take anything for granted. Unlike "shallow" forms of impermanence which might pay tribute to the way some things change, "deep" impermanence suggests that even the ground that "I" stand upon is an iceberg that could just as easily melt. There is nothing so solid that it cannot disappear in the next moment.
    If I think this way about impermanence, somehow,I am less 'calculating'. After all, the very notion of calculation means that there is always something at the end of the day that I can claim as "my own", and this "my own" becomes the bedrock of my experience. I then start to "pool" my resources (money, persuasion, words, thoughts) to keep that bedrock intact, only to find myself getting anxious and flustered, knowing deep down that even this precious sense of "I" is not resting on a firm foundation at all. Have you ever had those dreams where you felt that your teeth are going to fall out, and then wake up to feel your teeth---to know that they are intact after all? Deep impermanence is the realization that one's teeth are not one's true self, any more than any other part of the body.
   Far from making a person detached, I think that deep impermanence can allow a person to take more risks, and realize that what they have right now are the colors to paint tomorrow's canvas. That paint is meant to be used to make art, and this too will pass. So make art while you still can.