Zugzwang
motor, magnets, coin
Once mixed, the butter and the mashed potatoes cannot be separated. The smoke comes out of the cigarette, but it never goes back in. It’s forever. We cannot go back—that’s why it’s hard to choose. While we can predict exactly where Mars will be in the sky—even 100 years from now—there is no way of knowing what will become of us in the next ten minutes, the consequences of our choices float just slightly upstream.
Yet the coin continues to spin, possible futures poised on its edge. In chess, they call it zugzwang—when the only viable move is not to move. As long as we don’t choose everything remains possible. It is a prolonged moment of indeterminate potential between two possible but equally likely outcomes. It is a suspension. As two roads diverge in the wood, we will either fall up or rise down to meet them.