![\"IMG](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/IMG_2653.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
You don’t have to be Buddhist to see that there is a suffering rooted in the desire for permanence, at least in this world, where all is flux. I don’t know what happens in the next life (if there is such a thing), but here on Earth everything changes, everything ends.<\/p>\n
It’s far too optimistic for my sensibilities to regard all change as good. “Everything happens for a reason,” I often hear around town, where “reason” isn’t simply synonymous with causation but means something along the lines of: It’s all for the best<\/em>.<\/p>\n I don’t believe that. Things change for better, things change for worse. Progress is progression, not automatic improvement. I don’t believe that history\u2014of a person or city, of a people or world\u2014is an evitable march toward the good. Sure, the Renaissance came after the Dark Ages. But all those 20th-century genocides came after the Enlightenment, didn’t they? Better and worse is always with us; it is only stasis that inevitably gives way.<\/p>\n My topic today is nothing so momentous as a world historical epoch. It’s merely to speak of one little change at one little publication involving one little person. That person simply happens to be me.<\/p>\n For reasons it would be inappropriate to discuss here, this is my last column for the Long Beach Post<\/em>, the end of a four-year journey that began when then-editor Ryan ZumMallen offered me the chance to write pretty much whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. It was an offer I couldn’t refuse. After a few months I finally met Shaun Lumachi, the Post<\/em>‘s guiding force. He described himself as my biggest fan, and I felt tremendously supported by him from that day until the far sadder one in late 2011, when we lost him much, much too soon<\/a>.<\/p>\n Since his death the Post<\/em> has carried on, but it has not been the same. Not that it could have been. Not that it would have been even if that wrong-way driver had fallen asleep one second later and veered into the car behind Shaun’s. Who knows what the Post<\/em> would have been like in that case? The only answer we can give with any certainty is that it would have been different. The Post<\/em>, like Long Beach as a whole, is different for everyone it has gained and lost, even those who played smaller roles and departed sans tragedy. And so the Post <\/em>will be different when I’m gone, as will I in my post-Post<\/em> life.<\/p>\n If you’re reading these words, there’s a reasonable chance that difference might matter to you. Maybe you feel the Post <\/em>will be better off without me (it’s not been lost on me that I’m a writer many love to hate. Nothing wrong with that), or maybe you feel the Post <\/em>will be lesser for the loss of my words.<\/p>\n Whatever the case, the Post <\/em>will move on, as will I, each of us doing what we do as we go our separate ways. I won’t have any say in the direction the Post<\/em> will take, but I plan to have a voice in the local conversation for as long as I am able. Long Beach is my town, and because inevitably it changes all the time, I will continue to do my damnedest to help it along. As should we all.<\/p>\n Although the Post<\/em> is no longer as column-focused as it once was, you can still find traces of its original conception. Once upon a time everything I wrote was considered part of my column, which was called “No Destination,” the mission statement of which remains in my Post<\/em> bio:<\/p>\n Greggory Moore examines Long Beach in light of his belief that the most pragmatic aim of a community and its individuals is not for a terminus but simply to be better, always to be better.<\/em><\/p>\n That sums it up. Endings are always with us, because sameness cannot endure. Change happens\u2014for better, for worse. None of us can escape that change; all of us are a part. There’s no use fighting it. But there’s every reason to fight for the change you want to see.<\/p>\n Wherever I roam, that is my plan; and for the foreseeable future, my main stomping grounds will remain Long Beach. I hope you’ll join me in endeavoring to make the changes we experience together to be for the best\u2014”best” being not a point of arrival, but something like the horizon: a direction we can travel, but never a point we can reach. Here’s to better days ahead.<\/p>\n If you want me to keep you posted (if not <\/em>Posted) on what I’m up to, find me with the usual suspects: \u00a0<\/em>Facebook<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>LinkedIn<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>Twitter<\/em><\/a>. Plus, greggorymoore.com<\/a>. See ya!<\/em><\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A goodbye isn’t the end of the world, but it’s a sign that some small part of it has changed. That’s true at the Long Beach Post today, because this is my goodbye. And so tomorrow will be different. But hey, it would have been anyway, right?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":69005,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[62],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-3771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hi-lo","tag-commentary","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3771"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=3771"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=3771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}