Contingency

Was, is, and shall are harmless fellows.

They acknowledge time but do not bend it.

They recount being but do not shape it.

The universe unfolds along its necessary path.

Would, could, and should are potent fellows.

What would have been.

What could be.

What should become.

With them, we make our dreams and our nightmares;

We conjure our hopes and our fears;

We earn our triumphs and our defeats;

We feel elation and sorrow.

We act and react.

We control and are controlled.

We explore contingency

To become omnipotent.

Fate is contingent on agency.

Agency begets more agency.

What is agency?

It is the quest to be godlike.

Why are there devils?

Devils know themselves,

And god,

And that they are not god.

They are tormented by their faults.

They are arrested by their stagnation.

They are condemned to misery,

Because they are unchanged despite agency.

Why is there not god?

All gods fail.

If god were perfect, god's ways would be necessary.

Necessity is determined from the first.

Necessity exists without trouble,

Without process,

Without contingency,

Without agency.

Necessity does not stumble,

It does not learn,

It does not change course.

Necessity is a lifeless void.

Godliness is not the necessary point to which being converges.

Godliness is an expanding sphere of agency.

It is divergence, uneven and contorted.

Every god destroys itself in the pursuit of godliness.

What am I?

Once I saw what I was, am, and shall be,

I imagined what I would have been, could be, and should become.

Restless and insatiable,

I am devilish and godlike,

Obliged to wrestle

With my own contingency.

First written June 4, 2021.

Published September 29, 2025.