I’ve been listening a lot to a local Sarasota FM station that plays rock music from just my era and pretty much all stuff I love. At the same time a friend has recommended Radio Paradise and I’ve been trying to get myself to tune in.

Much like WXRT in Chicago, it plays rock from a number of eras but curated to be all stuff that kind of goes well together, a flow of sounds through decades. Sometimes on RP I hit a nice mix of old stuff I know and love and new things I don’t know.

One day recently I put it on and found myself in a long stretch of music I’d never heard before and I wasn’t really loving any of it. Nothing bad, just not grabbing either. Not one song I’d pick up the tablet and write down info to find it again. I longed for the FM but I was all comfy with my book and the FM station takes the old stereo setup in another room.

As I thought about how much I love almost every song on the FM station and wished the streaming app would play something I loved, it struck me that a certain measure of disliking change lived somewhere in those feelings of discomfort with the new stuff. Not anything huge, but once the thought crept in, I flowed on to a sudden distinct sense about how much of our current upheaval and conflict in the world reflects the fears of lots of people who are faced with a changing world they really hope to keep the same.

And in my moment of discomfort about my favorite old rock choices, I felt a tiny tug of greater understanding about how afraid they are. Not enough to sympathize with the hateful choices many are making, but enough to see more about how much humans generally like things to stay the same.

Fear of change is behind so much of what goes wrong in the world and how unhappy people who want their lives to be the same tomorrow as yesterday wind up ramped into constant anger. As I sat and willed myself to just let the unfamiliar music flow and enjoy having the musical background to my novel, I had no insight on how to help those “stay-the-same” folks reconcile with change.

I learned how to move into the flow by purposefully pursuing a spiritual path including practices to develop just that skill. But you can’t make other people do it, it’s definitely something that must be chosen. So no answers from my moment of insight. Just a flash of recognition about the deep discomfort many are feeling…