the need for change

Continuing to share from this brilliant piece of work by Lewis (The Screwtape Letters), below is a section referring to the desire for incessant change. The "devils" are discussing how they think they can exploit this idea to cause dissatisfaction and to draw people away from asking if things are righteous, prudent, possible, necessary....

Only by our incessant efforts is the demand for infinite, or unrhythmical, change kept up. This demand is valuable in various ways.

In the first place it diminishes pleasure while increasing desire. The pleasure of novelty is by its very nature more subject than any other to the law of diminishing returns.

And continued novelty costs money, so that the desire for it spells avarice or unhappiness or both.

And again, the more rapacious this desire, the sooner it must eat up all the innocent sources of pleasure and pass on to those the Enemy forbids (137, emphasis mine).

Variety is good and, of course, not in itself sinful. Our Lord has created such a bountiful Earth with such incredible, imaginative sources of diversity and creativity. But when pure novelty and change is sought for its own pleasure, we should stop and think.