The World Loads as I Move
Experienced cyclists float on their bikes
Rush hour. Haarlemmerplein. On my way to teach.
The tram dings, slightly impatient. Omafiets bells answer. At the red light, everything gathers for a second, then releases. Someone steps in with an agitated dog, it locks onto something from a passing bike and stops. The line holds. Green: pedals answer. Speed rises, then folds into the cadence ahead, like an accordion. It looks effortless, but it’s a constant micro-adjustment.
I’ve always been fascinated by this kind of floating dance.
But now I’m in it. Five years in, I move inside the flow. At some point, I stop watching and realise I’m one of them.
It feels like those procedurally generated games like Minecraft, where the world builds itself just ahead of me. The terrain appears as I move. Obstacles show up a few meters ahead. Just enough.
Enough to keep moving. Enough to not overthink the whole map.
I know the direction. I don’t need the full picture yet.
It unfolds as I go. Or, as I float.
And it feels right to stay with this exact moment. There are many directions, many paths. But I don’t feel pulled by all of them. I don’t need to answer every call.
What I pay attention to draws the path.
Call it predictive processing if you like labels. A constant draft: anticipate, check, adjust. Check again.
Reading Anil Seth helped me put words to it: I don’t see, then think. The brain guesses, then corrects.
What I attend to gains weight. It becomes clearer, more relevant. The rest fades.
So I stay with the few meters in front of me. That’s enough.
In yoga, this falls under Pratyahara.
Pratyahara is when I stop chasing everything that calls for attention.
There will always be distractions. Attention is shaped in small decisions: what I stay with, what I let pass.
So when I ask, “What do I want next?”, I’m not trying to figure everything out anymore.
On the move, like the cyclists, I see what shows up and micro-adjust.
After setting a direction, I keep going.
And things start to organise around it.
More on:
Pratyahara – “One Simple Thing” by Eddie Stern
Consciousness – “Being You” by Anil Seth
Spotify playlist for this article, curated by Lidia Eira
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/35zaFdDsDGp7e7yoBLhXgX?si=Oc_MdmwaQOe461o4_IrhWg&pi=DGzBz2IOQZO7l