The Point of Inevitability

What is inevitable and how do we perceive it?

Hominid Skull, Graphite on paper

We tend to think that inevitability arises from an accumulation of inertial momentum. This opens us to hacking inevitability by turning to strategies of chasing after power. It ends up a whip we use against others, and ourselves, to force strategies. Inevitability gets hijacked when we are overcome with a sense of urgency.

Urgency is paradoxical. We feel it because we sense that a threat, or an opportunity, is imminent and requires a response. So far so good. What derails urgency is that we tend to accept, “There’s no time!” as license to simply react in whatever way strikes us. In extremis this can be justified. Better to, “Go down swinging!” But urgency coupled with a sense of inevitability often leads to either giving up or rushing off in reaction.

Thought is powered by reaction. Reactions are limited by habit. This traps us. We cannot find new paths while we are overcome by a sense of urgency or inevitability.

Salt Pond Sunset, oil on canvas