Do People Change? Revisited.

So, earlier, when this blog had more life to it, I asked the question 'do people change'?

More specifically - here is what I have been wondering for a while:  if a person changes, was he or she always destined to make that change?  If someone betrays another - was it always destined to happen?  Was it a weakness that was lurking beneath the surface that would eventually inevitably come to?  Did we just not know him or her that well to begin with?  Or, is it that some life experience altered him or her for the worst (or maybe for the better).

I used to think more of the former - that people don't really change.  The old expression goes 'we become more of who we are'.  However, now I am starting to think we, as people, are more fragile than we realize. There have been a couple of people I have lost for various reasons - some their fault, some mine.  There are some people in my life with whom the relationship will not ever really be the same because of something that has happened to cause a rift.  In my mind, for as much as I want to blame them and their weaknesses as people, I blame circumstance.  Even though it might seem that this part of him or her would have come out eventually at some point, I often think 'if only this one thing hadn't happened this way, everything would be still be the way it was....'   Whenever I mull over this point in my mind - despite its flaws, I keep finding it to be true.  That, and even though it's easy to look at the weakness/problems in the person, that doesn't always take away from missing the person (even if that person that I cared about doesn't really seem to be there any more).   I often find if I blame the person and his or her weaknesses, I could, ultimately end up hurt by and blaming everyone I have ever and will ever encounter in life.

That, and then I wonder, is everyone and everything we love 'subject to change'?  We might care for a person for who he or she is right now - what if that doesn't last?   Does everyone have a weakness that can, in some way, hurt us in the end?  Is there anything we can do to prevent it?  I write off every past failed (not necessarily romantic) relationship based on either a) I didn't know the person as well as I thought or 2) the person changed.  When will we know someone well enough or when will we reach a point that the person is done changing?   Anyone?   Your thoughts?

Bah.  This post is probably too emotional/random/self-reflective.  I am sorry.  It seems to have all been fluff for a while, so I decided to try to go to a deeper place.  For better or for worse.  Sigh.  The worst  truth of it all is that is that THIS BLOG is probably what has changed.  Sigh.