Accepting the reality in which we live is a start, even if our brains don't like it. (Who's serving whom anyway? Are we the slaves of our brain, or are we its master? Or worse, Are we our brains? Thank you very much Jean-Paul Sarte and associates.) To live in a reality where everything is temporary requires that we accept the truth about forms: they change.

Sentimentally, this is totally depressing. But on the sort-of upside, everything in the universe is subject to this law, even the gods. It's not personal. It's probably not even impersonal! And unless the universe is innately cruel — or even more stupid than Galileo — then there's probably a glimmer of hope.

Analogy
Imagine a Great Ocean as big as the universe. Imagine a Meta Sun, lighting the sea from within and without. Imagine the tips of waves reflecting its light. Each tip shimmers — for the briefest of moments — and then recedes back into the vast oceanness of it all . . . again and again.

Brain Polish Remover
Even if this analogy reflects only a few droplets of truth about what's really happening, our brains continue telling us a different story: Usually, it says that other people are, well, just that: other people. Electromagnetic wave-thingies ("light") indiscriminately bounce off them, enter our eyes, and then scurry along neural pathways to reach the Central Command Center ("Le Brain"). Once there, this magnificent organ paints a Light picture on our reality-textured mind canvas. As an obsessive art critic, Le Brain instantly analyzes its creation, typically singling out some trait — sometimes an outstanding physical characteristic or something that reminds it of a past experience and judges it. "Hmm, a fat person. A fat person is. . . ." And this conclusion often emotes a familiar, patterned response.

Or maybe it was that volleyball coach, the one who had those menacingly overgrown eyebrows that jutted out in strange, rebellious ways as if to defy natural law. Remember? He kicked you off the high school team for no reason! The rat! Now, any time you see someone with those cruel, steel eyebrows you feel resentful.