What if the true revolution isn’t to do things differently, but to cease being defined by the “need” for difference at all? What if it’s not about writing a better rulebook, but about seeing that action—the living gesture—always precedes whatever’s written down?
I. Every Model is a Shadow
Pandemics, depressions, black swans—they never arrive from the logic of the spreadsheet. Our models watch in the wrong direction: the world moves, we simulate, error, revise, simulate again. It’s not a failure of effort, but the very nature of what is emergent. Reality erupts; the rulebook takes notes, always too late.
When the COVID pandemic struck, no economist, no AI, no ministry foresaw the path ahead. The event came; only then did new models arise, clinging to the narrative-foam in its wake. This is not an exception, but the normal: “the model doesn’t predict the black swan; the black swan forces a new model.” It is here we find the rift that shatters causality.
II. The Anxiety of Causation
Beneath every decision (Should I quit this job? Should I give my child a phone? Should I dive to save the drowning child?) lies an ancient burden: the anxious “I”, desperately wanting to be the origin of consequences, haunted by the need to act according to some handbook of “right.”
We imagine we are the cause—the prime mover. This belief engineers entire architectures of guilt, credit, blame, fame. Every legal code, ethical system, and parental panic presumes it. Yet, upon inspection, this “causality” is a myth: a convenient, necessary hallucination, unmasked by both ancient Eastern wisdom and the best of modern philosophy.
III. The Spiritual Inversion—Not Surrender, but Source
Advaita does not simply say: “Let go, be an instrument.” Nor does it traffic in Sartre’s existential self-invention. The inversion is far more radical—expression precedes instruction. Like King Rama—who did not become “the most dharmic” by consulting the shastra, but rather, by living so purely that the shastra modeled itself on him—each act arises from what you are, not from the world’s demand.
Dharma, ethics, models—these are after-images, not blueprints.
IV. When Action Becomes Rulebook
True action, sourced in the root of being—not personal striving, not quietism—is indifferent to whether it is later canonized. Rama’s choices define righteousness, not by intention, but by the fact of their pure, unforced emergence. Rulebooks follow such actions, not the other way around.
- Action is the arch-original; codification is its echo.
- “Others” may chase the fragrance, build temples, fashion doctrines—but the flower “does not care.”
- Expression comes before model; compassion before commandments; being before becoming.
V. Black Swans, Moral Archetypes, and the Inimitable Dancer
When the great depression strikes, when the unforeseen pandemic thunders, when an avatar like Rama strides across the field—models, rules, and theories fall into step behind. Society lags the individual who lives from the source. The emergence is the event; the narrative is always a post-script.
VI. The End of Being Impressed
How does a society look when this inversion is truly lived? Outwardly, little may seem to change. Institutions persist, ethical codes remain, traditions continue. But the locus of power shifts decisively:
- The field stops “impressing” itself upon the individual, no longer demanding conformity, applause, or action in its image.
- The world’s gaze turns weightless; the drive to impress or be impressed dissolves.
- Action wells up from a prior, unshakeable root: not in rebellion, nor in passivity, but in the freedom of spontaneous response.
It is not moral quietism; it is not nihilism. It is a serene, unshakable faith in consciousness itself, of which compassion is an inseparable aspect. When cause is not “out there,” but is the very fact of conscious emergence, one’s expression simply is—needing neither excuse, nor endorsement, nor imitation.
VII. The Open Secret
The final inversion: the world need not reassure you; events need not bend to prediction; society need not validate your being. You glance at the “rulebook,” smile mysteriously, and notice that the most vital things in history—acts of love, art, rescue, or insight—never waited for permission.
The models will always pursue the world. But what you are is free—unwritten, unwritten, unwritten.
Warning: Reading this may trigger a deep sense of relief. You are the event you’ve waited for—not something to be understood, but the open silence from which all expression arises. Proceed without a handbook. You’re never off-model; you’re the source the models chase.
Reinvent The Self! 