Nothing Is On Fire
A meditation on restraint, quiet fear, and the moment before everything changes
I keep waiting for something to go wrong.
Not because I want chaos.
Because when something goes wrong, at least the next step is obvious.
You fix it.
You leave.
You call someone.
You do something.
But right now nothing is happening.
My life works.
I wake up.
The day goes fine.
I do what I’m supposed to do.
I write when I sit down to write.
Nothing is collapsing.
Nothing is demanding my attention.
Which should feel like peace.
But it doesn’t.
It feels like being stuck on a loading screen.
Not miserable enough to panic.
Not good enough to relax.
Just… waiting.
And I hate waiting.
I used to think change came with a bang.
A breakup. A fight. A hard pivot.
Something dramatic enough to force a decision.
But that wasn’t growth.
That was me letting the world shove me into the next chapter because I didn’t want to choose it myself.
This part is worse.
Because nothing is pushing me.
There’s no emergency.
No heartbreak.
No cliff edge.
Just the quiet realization that you can stay in a life that functions…
and still feel like you’re not fully inside it.
That’s the part nobody warns you about.
The boring middle.
The stable days.
The “everything’s fine” that still makes you feel like something’s missing.
I don’t even have the satisfaction of blaming anything.
I can’t point to a disaster and say, “That’s why I feel like this.”
It’s not a disaster.
It’s something smaller.
It’s that I’m starting to notice I’ve been living like I have time to spare.
Like the version of me I want is going to arrive on his own.
Like I can just keep doing what works and eventually it’ll turn into what I want.
And that’s not how it goes.
The scariest part is how normal this feels.
Nothing is on fire.
No one’s screaming.
No alarm bells.
So I keep going.
And I keep waiting for the moment where the universe finally forces my hand.
But I’m starting to realize it won’t.
No interruption is coming.
No clean exit.
No dramatic plot twist to make the decision for me.
If my life changes, it’s because I change it.
Which is both terrifying and kind of disrespectful, honestly.
Because I’ve been acting like I need permission.
Like I need a reason.
Like it has to get worse before I’m allowed to want better.
It doesn’t.
The change isn’t going to happen to me.
It’s going to happen because I finally stop waiting for the smoke.
And I move anyway.
// Scorpio Veil
Well written, SV.
I would say that some changes accumulate slowly, like dust. At first you are not aware of it, but eventually you can't even see out of your window. The world turns grey and dull.
There is no crisis, and you are not forced to make a change. The choice is always yours to make and, one day..... you do.
The art is to recognise when a little dust is becoming a lot of boredom.
Best Wishes - Dave