What does Bernoulli’s “Eadem mutata resurgo” mean for someone who looks beyond the mathematical solvings he discovered? Can the latin phrase be interpreted as something to live one’s life by?

Eadem mutata resurgo.

— Jakob Bernoulli

Traditionally, the saying is known to describe the logarithmic spiral. “Bernoulli was referring to the fact, that the logarithmic spirals are self-similar, meaning that upon applying any similarity transformation to the spiral, the resulting spiral is congruent to the original untransformed one. The logarithmic spiral continually appears in nature, such as with the curves of the Nautilus shell.”

Now, how does this ever-present natural reoccurence apply to human behavior? I personally believe that people change contantly, that change is inevitable. Once we make a decision to do someting, or the opposite: to stay put, or even think a single thought, we have altered from the way we were as a human being miliseconds ago.

You cannot step into the same river twice, for other waters are continually flowing on. 

– Heraclitus

If one was to sum up the teaching of Buddhism in relation to impermance, we could say that we suffer because we react on everything that happens. We are stuck in our own reality, the one that we’ve created for ourselves in our minds. We are thinking of how our knees hurt when meditating, we dwell on past mistreatment and the desire for revenge because we choose to react.

The Law of Impermanence is a buddhist concept and it is a tool to understand our own human nature. Every moment is already changing, every possible moment will pass. There is no value in getting attached, because the present passes and turns into the past as soon as it becomes the present.

Neuroscience has not been able to explain human consciousness but we have been able to come closer to a scientific explanation to one of these Buddhist Noble Truths. Subatomic particles constantly arrise and pass away. As the human body is made of the subatomic particles (that all of nature is made out of as well), we change dramatically in the blink of an eye. (Truthfully, much faster than the human eye is able to blink.) Thus, change is ubiquitous in nature, with people being part of the natural world.

What if I dare took the latin phrase Eadem mutata resurgo for my own motto, of sorts? Would a saying such as this even pass for an insta-worthy citation? Can you really lead your life by this, meaning: would it ever inspire you to do anything better, would it better your life or the life of others? Such latin citations tend to be thought provoking and most commonly encouraging; daring us to do more because from nothing also comes nothing (EX NIHILO NIHIL FIT), to be ready for anything (IN OMNIA PARATUS), to seize the day (CARPE DIEM). While such delightfully brilliant phrases often tend to be overused and at times rather cringey when people get them tatooed with the wrong spelling; they are nevertheless a tool that can help someone be the desired version of themselves.

Despite evident alterations in our bodily structure and brain structure we can seem the same to others for ages and ages. Not in the Dorian Gray type of way, where we remain youthful and unchanged for decades to come, but rather in the sense that the microscopic yet important evolution of our bodily growth (aging) and throught processes are too microscopic for humans to grasp in the moment.

Important to bear in mind rests the fact that while we might be completely different with each minute of the day, with each échec or victory, we can keep our core values and philosophies, keep our standarts. Yes, perhaps never in the same way as we used to – as our relationship to abstract concepts such as values changes as surely as the river flows and thus turns itself into a completely new river. The importance of the value might arise the same even after the alterations that we have undergone as a person and that the concept has undergone under social change. It arises different but unchanged.

This is where the oxymoron of Eadem mutata resurgo comes in. As many things in life, my own little truth, which happens to be, funnily enough, my College’s motto, is a beautiful paradox.