future vanishes

“when you proceed along the open space of a path, you encounter the turbulent rush of contingency. Things are not as stable or predictable as they once appeared. The present moment is nothing but the point at which the future vanishes. The not-yet-come hurtles toward you like an endlessly breaking wall of water into which you have no choice but to step”

Stephen Batchelor, Living With the Devil

It's easy to get stuck in cycles. In circles. In the motion of gyres and gears. The constant turning that goes nowhere. That leads to nothing. Identical rituals of the same actions and reactions in the patterned conditions of the same words, the same verbs, the same things, the same fears. Put upon a devil's wheel.

There's a comfort in it. A box step repeating. Three beats per every measure in a waltz of regret, and muscle memory.

But "a path" is something different. It's something cutting, isn't it? It's a trajectory that traces a breach in the distance. A line across boundary. A tear in something circuitous. An entrance. A fissure. An exit. A door.

I know I need to do things differently. To inhale deep and exhale slowly. I don't how yet, why, or when.

It starts where the future vanishes. Where there is no predicting anything.

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