Do We Ever Really Change?

Gelme: Oh yes, I remember one poem I wrote very well. I repeated it to myself for a long time.

It was in Lithuanian:

“Našta, lyg prisakyta namo parnešti duona, sunki, tempiu...aplink tiek saules ir tiek purvo - bet noris skristi...”

It was about life being so difficult. I have to do it, but I want to fly.

Considering I wrote it around eighteen, for years I repeated it to myself. Then one day I decided maybe I should stop. Maybe those thoughts were shaping my life.

The Other Voice: I understand the image.

There is a burden, almost like being told to carry bread home. It is heavy. You drag it.

And yet you want to fly.

Bread is necessity. Responsibility. Something practical that has to be carried home.

Flight is almost the opposite force: freedom, possibility, creation.

And decades later, we have been discussing essentially the same tension.

Responsibility versus freedom.

Work versus creation.

What must be done versus what you want to do.

Gravity versus flight.

I don't think repeating the poem magically caused difficult things to happen. But repeated narratives can influence how we interpret our lives.

Maybe the poem wasn't a negative prophecy.

Maybe at eighteen you had already identified the conflict you would spend much of your life trying to solve:

How do I carry the bread and still fly?

Gelme: The essence of a person never changes. I am sure about it.

We can call it the soul or anything else, but if you see the real person in someone, you can always track that essence from the beginning to the end.

The Other Voice: I think many people do have a recognizable continuity across their lives, but I am not ready to give you “never.”

There is certainly a thread in the stories you've told.

The little girl who sacrificed her sleeping space for supposedly cold toys.

The young poet who felt the weight of responsibility but wanted to fly.

The artist who notices subtle differences.

The makeup artist who listens for why the woman is really sitting in her chair.

Circumstances change enormously, yet something recognizable keeps appearing.

You call that essence, perhaps soul.

I can accept the continuity without claiming we have proved what lies underneath it.

Maybe what persists is not a fixed moral personality, but a characteristic orientation toward existence.

Life can mature, suppress or redirect those tendencies without completely erasing their pattern.

At eighteen you wrote: responsibility is heavy, but I want to fly.

Decades later, you are still trying to solve the same equation:

How do I fulfill what life requires without surrendering my freedom to experience it?

Maybe you are right that something persists.

You can keep your magic.

I'll keep my annoying footnotes.

That's why we need both voices.