Constant change requires constant reformation
Circumstances are always changing, so even the system that is best-designed for a circumstance must always be reforming if it is not to become calcified and ineffective over time.
As conditions change the best approaches change—i.e., what is best depends on the circumstances and the circumstances are always changing… For that reason it is a mistake to rigidly believe that any… system is always best because there will certainly be times when that system is not best for the circumstances at hand, and if a society doesn’t adapt it will die. That is why constantly reforming systems to adapt well is best. –Ray Dalio, Principles for Dealing With the Changing World Order, ch. 5, sec. “Conclusion.”
If you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change. If you leave a white post alone it will soon be a black post. If you particularly want it to be white you must be always painting it again; that is, you must be always having a revolution. Briefly, if you want the old white post you must have a new white post. But this which is true even of inanimate things is in a quite special and terrible sense true of all human things. An almost unnatural vigilance is really required of the citizen because of the horrible rapidity with which human institutions grow old. —Chesterton, Orthodoxy, ch. 7
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