A shiny red sphere with a long blue cylinder going through it. There are lines shown to indicate that the sphere is moving. [https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0aa1c696-9606-4595-810a-819a866a41eb_1920x1080.png]
You are a red dot on a blue line hurtling at 65 km/hr, your sensory organs consisting of the nerves in your skin and nothing else. There is a cylindrical hole inside you with which you wrap the blue line (your stomach? sure, call it whatever you wish[1]). Every second you feel the friction, rubbing as you rush through your path. You can't scream. You can't give a sigh of relief or sadness. Or pleasure. You just move.
Thorns in your stomach. Grinding. Did your body start as soft or solid? Right now it's somewhere in between. But how did that happen? Did your rock-hard body get eroded by the motion, or did your soft fleshy body harden up as you travelled, muscles clenching to protect itself from the line, from the wind lashing at you? When were you born and where did you come from?
The line wonders the same about itself. Maybe. Who knows what it wonders? Despite all the time you spend on/outside the line, you never talk to it. It doesn't want to talk, it seems. What is its skin like? Seldom it is that you slow down enough to feel, truly feel the line's surface. You did it once, going at 15 km/hr. The line gurgled when you slow down. The bubbling of lava, beneath you and inside you. Perhaps it was just some twitching of your muscles. Does the line twitch often, but you go too fast to notice it? Or did it get nervous because you were too slow, thinking something was about to end, or something about to start, or something was about to let go entirely of the concept of 'end' and 'start'?[2]
You can talk to the line, but it seems pointless. You're too different from each other, right? The line's desires are irrelevant to you, too. It wants a slow life, which it already has. Because you're the one moving[3]. Who cares? Who cares? The line squirms at times, but it's mostly just still, relative to you. What does it have to squirm at, though? You're moving, and you must always be moving, you're the one who should be squirming yet you're not. What excuse does the line have? You could ask, but what's the point?
The line is fighting back. But you need to get to your destination. The line is at every time at once. It is the it it will be tomorrow, and it is the it it would've been yesterday. It is its present self, its past self, its future self, all at once. All the same, it's an unchanging and unmoving line for all time. You, though, you're always on the move. The only you is the one in the present. Whenever you are, it's the present. Whenever the line is, who knows? You know. 'Every time'. [4] Everytime the line is, it is, it just is.
Spread itself thin, really. What's it squirming for? Does it want you to do something, want you to stop moving? Well, you can't. [5] No point squirming. You can't move without the line and without you, the line… perhaps it would be fine, actually. There's no reason for it to want you. Although, that time you slowed down to 15 km/hr and paid attention to it, didn't it feel good?
The bubbling contractions of muscles that could've been the line's, could've been yours, and it was all blurred. Wasn't it a fascinating feeling? New, fantastic? Didn't time seem like it tasted good for once, as it washed over your pores? Did the line like it? Does it ever pay attention to how you feel on it? Does it ever think to dissolve and leave you, leave you hanging and falling and feeling nothing?
Maybe the line doesn't think about it at all. Where must its brain be? Does it have one at all? And if it does, is it just imperceptible because it's everywhere in time and you couldn't possibly, possibly comprehend it, so why bother?
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Time contracts and expands like the metal of the railway tracks.[6] Come to think of it, where is your destination? You’ve got ways to figure it out, like GPS. Or a big map which many different people have contributed to. But that tells you where you are right now, not where you're going.
Where are you going?
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Footnotes:
[1] You can do whatever you want but no, not really. You can use a different lens to look at things, like your body, and technically that is a “thing” you are doing, but do you want to do it? On your pyramid of wants, how high is “altering self-perception”? Can you get high in this form that you have been forced into? Were you forced, were you coerced, or is it more true that you were so weary that this form seemed much better than anything else the world could offer?
[2] What if you and the line ended? What if you started telepathically screaming, "I WILL NEVER STOP, I'LL STAY IN MOTION UNTIL I GET TO NOWHERE, AND THERE IS NO WAY TO GET TO 'NOWHERE' AND SO I WILL NEVER STOP, AND THERE WILL BE NO END TO ANYTHING. NO ONE KNOWS THE TRUEST OF BEGINNING. NO EXISTENCE, I MAY BE UNAWARE OF HAPPINESS/SADNESS/ANYTHING IN THIS STATE AND IT WON'T MATTER FOR I WILL BE PROUD TO HAVE ELIMINATED A CONCEPT AS FUNDAMENTAL AS 'ENDINGS' AND 'BEGINNINGS' AND IF I CAN BREAK THE CHAINS OF SUCH FUNDAMENTALS THEN MAYBE I COULD BREAK OTHER CHAINS THAT STOP ME FROM, WELL I DON'T KNOW WHAT I WANT SO PERHAPS I'D FIRST BREAK THE CHAIN THAT PREVENTS ME FROM KNOWING WHAT I WANT."? Well, if you did, then the line would be in sheer agony. Have you even thought about its length? You are a creature of a small radius, so you must not think very often about creatures who have lengths as well (the line has radius and length; it's a line from above, only 2 dimensions matter as far as your existence is concerned), but perhaps the fact that its length is infinite and/or undefined what with needing to take its position in time into account too… but it's just the stupid line, right? Who cares? You don't. Who cares. Someone else? Perhaps you're lying about not caring? Who knows. Who cares. Who cares about this train of thought! Who cares about trains these days, either! This footnote is garbage. Useless.
[3] What the line wants is this: Peace. Not just in physical movement. Sensory peace, as well.
Just in case you were curious. Just in case.
[4] Living in the present moment is a gift. If you don’t live in the present moment, you lose sight of all you are. Which is a red dot on a blue line hurtling at 80 km/hr. Can you feel the heat? The cuts? Or is it all numb? Can you feel the numbness? You’re in the moment of… this is a little bit in the future, this footnote. Or is it a message from the past? Did you go through everything else before returning to this moment and when even is this moment? Can you pinpoint it? No, you can’t. You’re not living in the present moment. No gift for you. But maybe this is what you wanted. So, congratulations.
[5] You can stop, you just won't. It would be wrong, so you can’t. Wrong in what way? It would be wrong. It would just be wrong. It would just be wrong. The line would not understand. That's why it's pointless to talk. It would be wrong. Why would it be wrong? It would be wrong. How to explain? It would be wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong,
[6] Firstly, railroad tracks are obsolete when we can have sentient movers like you. "And what about my passengers?" You're numb to their coming and going. Who cares? Their desires are irrelevant. Yours are simply, "move."
Now, the second thing: Congratulations. There are many who would kill to have the type of freedom from time that you do. That’s a different type of gift, being able to live in the moment like you do, all other time just washing over you and clogging your pores, so you can be in any ‘present’ that you wish. So many would kill for that. Congratulations, congratulations on your blessed existence.