(click the picture to enlarge it)
"Stone and Sea are deep in life,
Two unalterable symbols of the world.
Permanence at rest, and permanence in motion;
participants in the Power that remains" -- Stephen Donaldson
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Permanence can be achieved by either being stone or by being sea, but I think humans can learn a lot from the characteristics of both.
Stone and sea are, of course, two different words for two of the 4 basic "roots" (now called elements) defined by Empodecles in about 450 BC: Earth, water, air and fire. He said that all matter was composed of different amounts of these 4 roots. He thought that nothing new could be created, and that complete destruction and death were impossible. All that could happen was changes in distribution of the roots and which were next to which and how they were mixed. This is really a very early version of the laws of thermodynamics and energy. "Energy can neither be created nor destroyed".
But he went further than that. If the 4 roots are "eternal and unalterable", then what causes them to move, to mix and separate. The answers are Love and Strife. Love is what causes attraction, and strife separation.
Cheers, Tom.