From The Screwtape Letters (The Screwtape Letters):

"Their nearest approach to constancy, therefore, is undulation—the repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks. If you had watched your patient carefully you would have seen this undulation in every department of his life—his interest in his work, his affection for his friends, his physical appetites, all go up and down. As long as he lives on earth periods of emotional and bodily richness and liveliness will alternate with periods of numbness and poverty."

What has been dubbed the Law of Undulation is an example of the repeating osscilations I see in the world. From the Safety Dance swimming story, to waves (Safety Dance Reflects Life's Natural Cycles) in permaculture, to the constant flux of niches (Two views on survival in complex systems) to be filled by plants and businesses, to the building and atrophying of skills (Ultralearning), to the peaks and troughs of the stock market (Market crash is a correction).

C.S. Lewis saw the same pattern.

Citations

#toolong