Say what? Who is Heraclitus? And what does he have to do with canoeing?
As a paddler, you may have heard the phrase; "You never paddle the same river twice". But have you ever wondered from where that phrase originates, and what it means? Well, read on, and you'll learn all about it.
Heraclitus of Ephesus was a Greek philosopher who lived from 535 to 475 BC, in what was then part of the Persian Empire. Yes, they had paddle boats even way back then. In fact, King Xerxes of Persia had some 1200 large paddle boats which were part of his invasion force against Greece, while the Greeks had under 400.
Heraclitus believed in a unity of opposites and harmony in the world. In other words, everything is in balance, due to offsets by opposite attributes. Hot versus cold, dry versus wet, yin-yang, matter versus anti-matter, gravity versus centrifugal force, predators versus prey, and so on. The world and universe according to Heraclitus is in constant change, but also remaining the same. That is to say, an object moves from point A to point B, thus creating a change, but the underlying balance and laws of physics and nature remain the same.
But Heraclitus was most famous for his insistence on ever-present change as the characteristic feature of the world; an idea he expressed in the famous saying, "No man ever steps in the same river twice".
This view was opposed by others who believed the world and universe were static and unchanging. It was expressed with Parmenides's statement; "whatever is, is, and what is not cannot be".
Heraclitus used the river metaphor more than once: "Ever-newer waters flow on those who step into the same rivers" and "We both step and do not step in the same rivers. We are and are not."
The idea is also referenced by Plato, another Greek philosopher who came later, and said; "Everything changes and nothing remains still", and "You cannot step twice into the same stream".
As paddlers, we know that rivers may look much the same from one visit to the next, but in fact they are constantly changing. Of course, the water itself flowing through it is different water every time, having fallen from the sky into the watershed, flowing downhill and filling the river with new water. Also, water levels vary, meanders change course, banks collapse, trees fall in creating snags, boulders tumble, sand bars grow and shrink, islands appear and disappear, channels move, sediments create deltas, and water cuts new courses through deltas, and so on.
And this river metaphor was an illustration for the greater concept of change in all things. Nature changes. The environment changes. People change. Societies change. Even the universe changes. Nothing ever remains the same over time. Yet all remains in balance with everything else.
You never paddle the same river twice!
Further reading:
Wikipedia
Stanford