renew

The only way to be in a continual state of growth and renewal is to let everything go from one moment to the next. Things that were said, done, believed, experienced, accomplished, gained, lost, known, felt, thought, expressed - all of it should be relinquished as they pass by. Something that was true in one moment need no longer be true in the next. Life has moved on - I've emerged into a new moment, a new truth.

Words that were said may have been the truth in that moment but may not be in the next. Beliefs that were held, feelings that pass through, things that have happened - none of it means something fundamental about who anyone is. They're all just happening as a result of an incalculable set of overlapping circumstances. The mind draws patterns and tries to create a sense of cohesion and selfhood among them but all this accomplishes is to craft illusions that obscure and inhibit the experience of reality as it is now.

The person I was 20 minutes ago isn't the same as this one here now. That person I engaged with yesterday isn't the same as the one I'll meet today. The experience had 20 years ago didn't happen to the same person thinking about it. The thoughts and feelings that passed through an hour ago aren't here anymore. All of it is gone gone gone.

When it comes to the impermanent, each moment is entirely new. Sense of continuity is an illusion, like the individual frames that make up a movie or animation. It looks like a single moving moment stretched out over a length of time but it's actually made up of thousands of individual frames that only appear to be connected because of how fast they're passing by.