Regret—Loss Disguised as Living

Read time 1 minute. Regret pretends to teach. This article does too. Regret—Loss Disguised as Living is a stand alone article in our ongoing Goth Zen series.

We distrust darkness. We imagine something is hiding in there.
Or we villainize it as if it were synonymous with demise.

We’re told: To meet the moment you must stop running.
We’re rarely warned that something else might be waiting for us.
Or that whatever we were trying to outrun might finally catch up to us.

Regret—finished business that feels unfinished.
Like a tree that fell in a forest.
We keep checking to see if it made a sound.

Regret keeps us in the loop.
It is finished business that’s still being measured.
Measuring for alternate outcomes. Imagined selves. Unlived timelines.

Measuring moments that no longer exist.

Regret is proof that someone cared—
that we continue to misapply it.
But the care never changes the outcome.
Never reaches its destination.

The work is done. But attention keeps working.
Questioning. Litigating. Arguing with what was.
With what is…

Regret feels like participation in life—
but it’s really participation in delay.

A sand timer keeps time by letting it slip away.

Regret is what happens when care tries to keep what was only ever meant to pass through.

What do you call a clock that doesn’t keep time?
A life that only moves by disappearing.

Regret.
Like a leaf that’s not dying but burning.
Like a clock with no face, still ticking.
If melancholy is living disguised as loss,
then regret is loss disguised as living.

PunchOut
LingerOn

StartZenRevolution

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