Sayings

Among the many sayings famously attributed to the ancient Chinese, one is rendered thus: “May no new thing arise.”

It’s not so, of course. Research shows this saying to be no older than 1950, when it appeared in a story in Astounding Science Fiction. Patrick O’Brian used it in his The Wine-Dark Sea, transporting its origin to Catalonia: “Que no hayan novedades,” Stephen Maturin said to a man on the street in the port of Callao. (For the character of Maturin, this was a perfect match of sentiment, linguistic origin, and situation.)

Of course, new things do arise. Growth, change, and evolution are necessary – although this doesn’t make any of them easier, or simpler to accept, than stasis. Rather the contrary – the slowing-down of time, the moments in which ticking stops, are easier to understand, remember, and enjoy.

It is the endless summer day of childhood I recall – the stretching-out of an afternoon, the sense of never-ending sunlight, and the endless possibilities before dinnertime. Years later, it would be a languorous dusk in the arms of a lover, the post-coital drowsiness as evening settles in, when nothing is missing and perfect contentment is possible.

Nothing lasts forever, of course. Moreover, we wouldn’t want anything to stay the same. There’s something disturbing about a fly in amber.

But, that said, some things endure. Some moments remain in memory, unchanged. They are the perfect moments we want to remember – caught on an endless summer day, the light just so, her smile ever thus.

You know those days. You remember those moments. You, reader, you – you smile at your own private amber.

Stay there – y que no hayan novedades.