only in a variation...

Life is not a work of art – the moment cannot last.

                  –A River Runs Through It, the film

Here’s what I’m thinking…

Things don’t just happen. We do encounter them. Also, they don’t actually pass from us when we think they end. I’m not certain they can leave us. We must surely retain some shred of whatever it is. Some sort of bridge or connection must exist between me and this other.

In other words, these “things” – and you define them however you want – have always been and always will be. I can plan an F note on the guitar or sing the F note only because the F note already exists. I’m writing these words – just now – because the words already exist in me, already exist in the universe. I’m not creating. I’m rearranging whatever is already there into a variation.

In this moment, nothing exists in a complete form. Only in a variation of that form.

If I were to accept the premise that “life is not a work of art,” everything I’ve ever believed about myself would suddenly and finally end. I do accept the thought that life is not a finished work of art. The work has no end, and since it has no end, it could not have a beginning. The work, as it has always been doing, continues. I don’t do the work. I am what is being worked.