The Present Indicative, 19 May 2026
My Current Mood: The Only Constant Is Change
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“On those who enter the same rivers, ever different waters flow.” Heraclitus, Fragment DK B12
Communication is hard. Think about how often you are regularly misunderstood because:
Sarcasm is lost in email
AI only works with simple, exhaustive prompts
Autocorrect wrote “ducking” in your text message
And those are just three examples from our present time and digital space. The layers of meaning we communicate in the moment adjust to the tense and tone of the orator, filtered through the medium and mood of the audience. The greater the distance the lesser the cognizance. It’s why I provided Heraclitus in English up top instead of: “ποταμοῖσι τοῖσιν αὐτοῖσιν ἐμβαίνουσιν ἕτερα καὶ ἕτερα ὕδατα ἐπιρρεῖ.”
“Much learning does not teach understanding.”
LP Hartley once wrote, “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” I or AI can translate the Greek words based on the lexical entries of each word…“πολυμαθίη νόον οὐ διδάσκει”...but when the words are literally a fragment of text in the historical record, copied and recopied from faded worm-eaten parchment, catalogued as DK B40, what service do they provide and for whom? The philosopher who supposedly uttered them, or the student 2500 years later trying to understand rather than learn? Hell, the Greek identity was made up by the Romans. Greeks don’t even call themselves Greek!
We’ve already spoken of Socrates, Phaedrus, and the conceit of wisdom. Much learning does not teach understanding, and much editing removes the sting from our philosopher’s tongue. The full fragment in translation is: “The learning of many things does not teach understanding; otherwise, it would have taught Hesiod and Pythagoras, and again Xenophanes and Hecataeus.” DK B40
Take that, Hesiod! You got served!
“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”
Heraclitus had a thing for analogous rivers. For the paradox of life. For the unity of opposites.
Everything is in flux. We change as the substance of the river changes. As the nuance of meaning changes. From DK B91:
[ποταμῷ γὰρ οὐκ ἔστιν εμβῆναι δὶς τῷ αὐτῷ καθ’ Ἡράκλειτον οὐδὲ θνητῆς οὐσίας δὶς ἅψασθαι κατὰ ἕξιν <τῆς αὐτῆς>· ἀλλ’ ὀξύτητι καὶ τάχει μεταβολῆς] σκίδνησι καὶ πάλιν συνάγει [(μᾶλλον δὲ οὐδὲ πάλιν οὐδ’ ὕστερον, ἀλλ’ ἅμα)] συνίσταται καὶ ἀπολείπει καὶ πρόσεισι καὶ ἄπεισι.
[For, according to Heraclitus, it is not possible to step twice into the same river, nor is it possible to touch a mortal substance twice in so far as its state is concerned. But, thanks to the swiftness and speed of change,] it scatters <things> and brings <them> together again, [(or, rather, it brings together and lets go neither again nor later, but simultaneously)] it forms and dissolves, and it approaches and departs.
“Character is destiny.”
Then how can we stand against impermanence? When the world drops the veil of constants like law and order in favor of kleptocracy and chaos, how do we feel anchored in the maelstrom? DK B119:
Ἡράκλειτος ἔφη ὡς ἦθος ἀνθρώπῳ δαίμων
Heraclitus said that a man’s character is his fate.
Let’s break down those last three “Greek” words.
ἦθος = ETHOS. An accustomed place…custom, moral character.
ἀνθρώπῳ = ANTHROPO. Singular dative, meaning “to/for” man…human, humanity.
δαίμων = DAIMON. God, goddess…but the spirit not their physical manifestation, so divine power or the power to control one’s fortune.
My translation: For humanity, core values are our super powers.
How would you translate it?
In Related News…
Heraclitus once said, “The eyes are more exact witnesses than the ears.”
Normally I would reserve this space for the reference and response of my next week’s guest on The Future Indicative. Our audio podcast. And you will see this space aurally satisfied next month when I go live with our next episode (stay tuned in June!). This month, and every other month hereafter I intend instead to show some links and tell you about them. My own reference and response to what’s going on and why it could matter. Why not change things up to challenge what matters at Indicate Marketing.
And that begins with the David Lynch Weather Report. ICYMI, six years ago the late great artist David Lynch began reporting on the weather in Los Angeles. Pourquoi?
Pourquoi pas.
And I thought at least for the rest of this month I’d share what that was like from the man himself. Pourquoi?
Parce que…if anyone had unwavering vision towards his artistic standards in the face of constant knee-jerk commercial mediocrity, it was David Lynch. And every day you’ll hear what he forecast on the same day and date, just six years earlier. You might even be reminded of some contemporary events that have been conveniently forgotten, because no one has time to remember. To quote Heraclitus (DK B107):
“Eyes and ears are bad witnesses to men who have barbarian souls.”
θαλία!
Alex Effgen