The ability to make significant personal 
    changes 
 
 
  . Indeed, it's not so much change that is achieved 
 
  with one end being glacial progress 
    and the other being complete futility.
 
  seems to vary somewhere along an axis
 
 
  as much as a slow accumulation of 
    small achievements - tunes, acts of kindness and empathy...
 
 
  ... some dubious bonds of friendship, 
    bits of material wealth that buffer us