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Way back around 500 BCE there was a Pre-Socratic philosopher named Heraclitus. He was from the city of Ephesus in present day Turkey and he did not fit easily into the various categories that we use to classify the various Greek thinkers of his day. While most of the latter sought to explain reality and its changes in terms of the interaction between various cosmic forces or various elements, Heraclitus simply focused on the nature and power of change itself. This cosmic process of change he described as the process of flux or change which he saw as symbolized by the phenomenon of fire.
He seems to have chosen fire as the basic symbol of reality. A flame at one and the same time flickers but while remaining the same entity it is always the same. The flame is always changing yet the fire itself remains as a single unitary reality. It is always the same fire, and yet it is always changing its appearance and character. Scholars have only been to come up with but a few scraps of what seem to have been Heraclitus’ own writings, but these, along with what thinkers who followed and sought to interpret him, give us a basic clue to what he must have been thinking.
One can, of course, interpret Heraclitus in a wide variety of ways. The fire as such is one thing, therefore all reality is one. Or, the fire is always flickering, so there is no such thing as stability and oneness. I can look at my life as one reality or as a long series of individual events. Which is it? Both? Or Neither? I think the central focus of what Heraclitus was getting at has to do with the idea of ongoing change itself. Time and events always move on – there is always a “next” after anything – at least for us while we are alive. Just when you think something is stabilized, it will most likely change.
And I think Heraclitus thought this is a good thing. At least it is how reality is, always subject to alteration and process. Stagnation is the only alternative. As long as there is change there is the possibility of life. Of course, even this point of view has a way of emphasizing stability- the stability of change itself. As my Grandfather might have put it: “The only thing that never changes is change itself.” Some people, depending on their circumstances, look forward to change. Others fear it. Or, once again to look to Grandpa, “Life is like the weather. It is what it is and most likely will before long change again.”
The only advice Heraclitus seems to have given us is that change is built into the very nature of things and needs to be respected. He seems to have been opposed to any philosophy that would try to overly stabilize our view of reality. It is not clear whether he ever started a school of his own, but his thought seemed rather clearly aimed to conflict with that of Parmenides who saw reality as essentially a great “One”. For Heraclitus there was only one pure being and that by nature was in constant flux.
The Greek philosophy scholar Eduard Zeller says of Heraclitus: “Heraclitus is the profoundest and most powerful of the pre-Socratic philosophers. ..His three fundamental ideas are unity, eternal change, and the inviolability of the laws of the world-order.” (Outlines of the History of Greek Philosophy, p. 64)

– Who started this mess? No one seems to want to fix it !!
For as long as most of us can remember the Middle East, especially Palestine and Jerusalem, has been tossed like a footfall back and forth between various Western powers. Today we once again find this area, and our attitudes toward it, along with those of the various surrounding countries greatly confused and pained. I’ll try here to provide a brief and clarifying summary of what has transpired in Palestine since the beginning in the Book of Genesis.
Back around 2000 BCE Abraham and Sarah had a son, Israel and Abraham and Hagar had a son, Ishmael. The former became the nation of Israel (Hebrews) and the latter became the people we call Arabs. Both were said to be blessed by God. As we know, the Hebrews moved around and suffered a lot at the hands of various surrounding nations. Eventually they conquered what we today call “Palestine” (then “Cannan”) while Ismael’s people, who became what we call “Arabs”, settled in the desert country South and East of the Dead Sea.
Meanwhile, various superior kingdoms took control of these areas and their peoples. Babylonian and Persian captured and moved these peoples back and forth between their own countries and Palestine. Eventually, Alexander the Great conquered these nations all and incorporated them into the Greek Empire (300s BCE). Later, along came the Romans who replaced the Greeks. The romans conquered and essentially destroyed the Jewish nation remaining in Palestine in 63CE. The Jewish people were scattered around the world, especially to Europe.
During the long Middle Ages Palestine was “shared” by many different peoples, including Jews, Christians, and Pagans. These folks frequently fought over who should govern the land called “Holy” by nearly all of them. The Christian, Pagan, and Byzantine Empires were regularly at war off and on throughout the Middle Ages. Around 640 CE the Muslim Faith was born and now the world had an additional, entirely different perspective and effort to conquer with which to deal. This new perspective was pretty much dominated by the Turkish and Arab peoples
All of these perspectives fought for the dominance of the Middle Eastern World. Eventually the countries and wars of modern Europe came to dominate all of the above nations and religions. After the First World War (1916) even though there were a great many “civil wars”, the British Government pretty much took control of the above mentioned areas, focusing on the Suez Cannel. After the end of World War Two (1945) there were a great many “civil wars” by various nations in the region in an effort to control it.
In 1948, under the auspicious of the United Nations, Jewish people were allowed to return to their “Holy Land” even though there were many different claims to the control of what came to be called “Palestine.” The primary reasoning behind this decision was an effort to “recompense” the Jewish people for their displacement, oppression, and near annelation by the Nazi regime. The Jewish people were allowed to “return home”, even though the peoples living there, mostly Arabs, were not part of the decision for them to do so.
Needless to say, this decision and mass “exodus” of Jewish people from all over Europe, that followed it open up near total chaos in the region. Everyone thought, for a wide variety of historical reasons, thought the region belonged to them. The Jewish people arrived by the thousands, displacing or imprisoning the largely Arab population behind steel fences, a people which had been living there for decades if not centuries. In 1948 the new Jewish nation of “Israel” waged a sudden and decisive six day war against the Arab peoples in the region, taking control of nearly all of Palestine. The two peoples have lived side-by-side ever since in a perpetual state of war. The latest clash between them is only the most recent, and certainly not the last, such conflict.
So that is something of how it all got started and where it stands today. The Arab peoples occasionally fight back viciously, and ultimately ineffectually, while the Jewish Nation continues to seek to control them, largely with the favor of the Western world. I must add that I was able to visit the Holy Land briefly back in 1966 and witnessed the thousands of Arab peoples living behind steel fences unable to move freely in what once was their “homeland.” Of course, many others live in cities and villages all over the Palestinian area, but not with full freedom to move from place to place as they might wish. And so it goes.