What is this thing the world?

The world goes on without each of us, beyond us. Below, the each of us can forget it all for a while, or reject it all for even longer, before it returns us all to ourselves, coming to us unbidden, with a wave. The world cannot go on at all, without us all attending to it, even as the each of us drops away into death, and so the world will fall into our wake like a birthday, our wedding, all those happenings of meals and meetings.

The world does not care about each of us, but allows all care to occur, and if we care to choose the world, then in quickening concern the world will allow us to refuse it, before it returns us to ourselves worlded, grounded, placed, counted, cared, selfed.

Again.

Is this me I see before me?

What is this thing the world?

I do not stare at my feet the way I stare at my hands, but both are ways a fire tends to walk its flames into the world, handing a choice back into this thing we meet, again, in the making already offered.

Hello.

It’s not me, it’s you.

Crossposted at substack.com.