May 18, 1999

Metamorphics

There are some people in life that stay the same. Floods, marriages, plaques, and Mondays come and go and these people never change. Then there are people who change with the wind, or more precisely, with company. Such people are mirrors to society. When with outgoing, fast-paced, success-striving types, the person acts like an outgoing, fast-paced, success-striving type. Laughing jovial company leads to laughter and joviality. The idea is simple. These people transform at a moment's notice.

It's hard to be friends with such a metamorphic person. The qualities you admire at one moment might disappear in the next. However, I feel the greatest challenge is when a close group of friends contains such a person and someone else leaves the group. Whatever was once reflected in the metamorphic is now lost. I know well the strain this situation causes in me, but I do not know how the metamorphic feels. Are they aware of the change, the loss? Do they try to fill it somehow? I don't know.