Restlessness.
Which happens to be one of my favourite words. There’s a Björk song, Wanderlust, that eventually just collapses into foghorns and the repeated whispers ‘restless, relentlessness, restless’. It’s satisfying to say, just for the hissing and the rhythm.
The same goes for moving.
In theory the only solid and reliable A and B is the now and the future, and there’s no whys about it, you just have to keep on moving. You can’t hold on to A, and you can’t avoid B. That’s time for you.
Location-wise though, we could be talking about anywhere. But its inevitably going to happen. Stationary isn’t really a viable life choice. We need to get away from here because here is stagnation. We get bored. We pick somewhere else purely on account of it not being here. So we go.
It’s a bit mundane, but that does cover a lot of bases.
There are Bs that we’re forced into. Bs that we don’t really want, but believe we must. That happens to, but in the end it’s all just the constant need for movement.
The places aren’t the important thing anyway. The whole of life is about the journeys. The journey. The points we measure it by are arbitrary and meaningful. There isn’t a why to a where. There isn’t a reason to get away. There’s just movement. Motion. Unending.
That is what life is.
I’m obsessed with the notion that life, the universe and everything, is essentially so stuck in the process of change that there is nothing else for it. It’s the lesson we all need to remember. It’s the thing that makes all of this mess make sense. It helps us deal with the vicissitudes, and helps prepare us for the future. Recognising the constant motion of the universe. The inevitability with which any structure will fall apart (and any empty space be filled with something new)allows us to let go of that which passes, and value that which we’re in that’s passing.
We move to imitate that structure of the universe. Our bodies are aware of their falling apart, and get restless if we waste too much time in one experience. Staying in one place for too long is a prime cause of mental entropy, and moving on is generally a good start in self fixing.
Movement is one of those perfect metaphors. It quite clearly represents itself. It is bigger than it is, but it is simpler than it is. From A to B, the whole world is contained. Still spinning. Facing forward. We inevitably move and move and move. Life is movement. The universe is movement. Even at a molecular level, the absence of motion is considered approximately absurd. Absolute zero is the point at which movement stops, but we can’t get there.
It’s not about getting away, and it’s not about getting there. We just pit pins in maps and move.
Enjoy the movement itself, and you’ll be in the right place.
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Illustration by Michael S
