From the text: In systems, relationships comprise the change, not individuals. Relationships are what endure in nature, not individuals or components. Our language, as Gregory Bateson observed, is biased toward things, against relationships. We say "the table is hard," conferring "hardness" upon the table, but this "hardness" can only be experienced when the table stops some momentum. Hardness is only one half of a relationship. Likewise, our language and thinking about change, has to be a language of relationships, not things. A river is not a thing. A river is a process. Likewise, a body, a forest, or a society is a process, not a thing.