In electromagnetism, we talk about flux as the rate at which electromagnetic energy flows through a finite surface. In this usage, flux is the integral of a surface vector, which produces a scalar quantity (the distinction is important because flux in the study of transport refers to the amount that flows through a surface area per unit time, a vector quantity). In the equation above, electric flux (Φf) is the integral of the electric vector field E over the vector area (dA), directed as the surface normal...
O__o
No, I kid. I use the word here to refer to change. And what I have in mind is the most unpredictable and the most constant of changes: what happens when people change?
In every kind of relationships, that other (friend, parent, colleague,lover) plays a specific role, and we understand both the individual and the relationship with respect to that role. And I don't even mean seismic changes -- affairs, abuse -- I mean mundane ones. When the friend that we go to for comfort runs into emotional turmoil of his own, and needs to be the cared-for, rather than the caretaker; the first violinist -- a good friend and mentor -- falters and makes a series of thoughtless mistakes, and suddenly we are elevated, over him, to the position of concert master; or perhaps even more trivial, when our casual movie theater buddy takes a class in French auteur cinema, "discovers himself", and watches nothing but art house drivel. I mean, productions.
How does the relationship recover? Does it also change in order to adapt, and if so, how? If it becomes qualitatively different, then are we looking at an entirely new relationship? There seems to be a normative bias against severing the relationship entirely, but to what end do we preserve relationships?
People change all the time; we become ever more similar, more different, more incomprehensible. What obligations do we have to each other and to ourselves?
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