SECTION B
Essay
125 marks
You cannot step twice in the same river.
WRITE IN
90 min
1,000–1,200 words
Reading the topic
The idea comes from the Greek philosopher Heraclitus: the river's water is always new, and so is the person stepping in. The topic is about constant change and impermanence, and the examiner expects the essay to explore how identity, societies and institutions remain recognisable while continuously changing.
ThesisChange is the only constant, so wisdom lies not in resisting it but in preserving core values while letting forms and institutions evolve.
Dimensions to cover
- 1Philosophy: Buddhist impermanence and Heraclitus reach the same insight that nothing, including the self, stays fixed
- 2Individual: the person who returns to a childhood home finds both the place and their own perceptions have changed
- 3Constitution: a living constitution adapts through amendment and interpretation, while its basic structure gives continuity
- 4Environment: rivers literally shift course, and fixed human settlement and embankments often fight a losing battle against them
- 5Economy and technology: skills and industries that seemed permanent become obsolete, so societies must keep relearning
- 6Policy: solutions designed for one era fail when applied unchanged to another, so governance must keep revisiting itself
Counter-view
- Some argue that continuity is just as real as change: tradition, culture and identity persist across generations. The essay should reconcile the two by showing that the river is still called the same river, so continuity of pattern coexists with change of substance
Open and close
- Open: Open with an elderly man returning to bathe at the ghat of his childhood, finding the river in a new channel, and realising he too has become someone the boy would not recognise
- Close: Conclude that a society, like a river, keeps its name and direction only by flowing, and that the real danger is stagnation, not change
Where marks usually go
- Writing a river pollution or water management essay and missing the philosophical metaphor
- Discussing only external change and ignoring the second half of the paradox, that the person stepping in also changes
- Arguing that nothing lasts and so values do not matter, which slips into nihilism
Examples that fit
- ThinkerBuddhist philosophy teaches anicca, impermanence, holding that all conditioned things, including the self, arise and pass away moment to moment.Dhammapada; The Buddhist Teaching of Impermanence, Buddhist Publication Society
- CaseThe Kosi river, called the 'Sorrow of Bihar', has shifted its course westward over centuries, and the 2008 Kusaha embankment breach showed the limits of fixing a moving river.Bihar State Disaster Management Authority; Report on Kosi floods 2008
- CaseIn Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala (1973), the Supreme Court held that Parliament can amend the Constitution but not its basic structure, balancing change and continuity.Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala, Supreme Court of India (1973)
- ThinkerThe Ship of Theseus puzzle asks whether a ship whose planks are all replaced over time is still the same ship, mirroring the river paradox.Plutarch, Life of Theseus