In this incantation, I explore the nature of memory and perception, drawing a parallel between the physical and mental horizons that shape my experience. I delve into how older memories feel distant and intangible, while recent ones remain vivid, hovering close to me. These memories are malleable, projections I choose to believe in or dismiss, much like the mountains on a horizon that only exist as long as I look. The essence of my realization is that everything—past, future, the entire narrative I tell myself—is a choice, a story I craft and choose to look at.
I close my eyes and search the depths of my mind. I conjure the oldest memory I can find, and it’s distant, almost like a shadow. Then, I think of yesterday—bright, vivid, hovering close to me. There is a distance here, a depth, that separates the two. The older memories are far away, like echoes in my mind, while the events of yesterday are right here, floating near me, almost tangible. In older memories I tend to be on the outside looking at myself; in fresher memories I am closer to the observer. I notice this distance, this depth.
The past feels like it exists behind me, around my forehead, while what happened just yesterday hovers all around me, lingering like the scent of something that hasn’t quite faded away. There’s a horizon to this inner world, just like there’s a horizon in the world outside me.
It’s a trick of the mind—this distance, this illusion of depth. It all emanates from the same center, from me, projecting outward. It’s the same inside as it is outside. There is the immediate—the now—and then there is the horizon of old memories. Out there, beyond the edges of my immediate awareness, they stretch like mountains on a distant skyline.
These memories are mine, but it is my decision whether they happened at all. They’re only real if I look them, just like the horizon outside. I can see the horizon, but I can never touch it. I am always here, at the center, and the rest is just a projection.
The memories are mine because I choose them to be, but they don’t hold any weight beyond that. I could change them, and the entire scene would shift, as if the world had been re-drawn. Those memories are no more solid than the mountains I see in the distance—they’re beliefs I hold, choices I make, not tangible facts that exist independently of me. I can step inside my house and the mountains on the horizon disappear. I can “step inside myself” and the memories on the horizon are gone, just the same.
They didn’t happen unless I decide they happened. I project them outward, these beliefs, onto the temporal horizon, the same way I project the mountains onto the spatial horizon. I don’t move through time. I project the illusion of moving through time. It’s not that the past is behind me or the future in front of me—it’s that I am always here, now, and the rest is just a reflection of my choice, my focus, my attention.
It all happens here, in this ever-present moment, this unending now. The rest—yesterday, the distant past, the horizon of events that seem so far away—is just a story I tell myself.
When I still myself, I feel it all fall away. It’s just me, in this moment, and everything else vanishes, like a fading dream. It’s all just a projection, a choice. I can change the story; I can rewrite it if I want to. All I have to do is stop believing in those memories—those echoes of things that never were unless I say they were.
I exist now. I am what I am right now. The rest, the roots of this illusion, are only there if I believe in them. I can pull them up, let them wither, and disappear. If I am brave enough, I let the world I think I know fall away—the people, the past, the future—they are all just reflections of my inner landscape, projected outward, as fragile and as mutable as a dream.
It’s only here, in this space, this now, that I exist. Everything else is just… belief.
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