Before the Hand Moves
—On Volition—
You declare you chose—
but answer this:
when did the choosing commence?
In that apparent instant
your hand inclined toward the cup,
or within the imperceptible sediment
of a thousand antecedent leanings
you never apprehended?
Something advanced—
not of you,
but through you—
a clandestine concord of forces
too refined to resist,
too intimate to perceive.
You arrived
at what had already been ordained.
Name it thought,
name it will,
name it the theatre of dominion—
yet every resolution
carries the residue
of an origin unobserved.
Even your doubt
is not sovereign—
it is but the reverberation
of a conclusion
unfolding itself within you.
And still,
you narrate—
“I decided.”
As though the river
sought counsel of the stone
before its turning.
As though the flame
petitioned leave
to ascend.
No—
you are not the author of the act,
but its articulation.
The motion precedes you.
The outcome recognises you.
And in that narrow interval between,
you confer upon yourself a title:
Choice.
Author’s Note:
I have been absent for some time, engaged in the quiet construction of a philosophical series titled The Unseen Dominion, exploring perception, control, and the unseen structures preceding what we call decision.
It is a quiet return, but a deliberate one.
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