Thresholds Between Moments

On the Forgotten Art of Passage

Modern life appears continuous, yet inwardly it is fragmented.

What we call a moment is not merely a segment of clock-time. Spiritually speaking, a moment is a coherent configuration of life-forces: a living etheric form held together by rhythm, habit, intention, and meaning. Each activity we enter shapes such a form; each form sustains us for a time.

But moments do not succeed one another seamlessly.

When one activity ends, its etheric configuration begins to dissolve. Before the next can arise, there is an interval — often brief, often unnoticed — in which the previous form has loosened, while the next has not yet taken shape. This interval is a real experiential zone. It is a threshold.

The overlooked difficulty of passages

In earlier cultural epochs, these thresholds were supported by rituals, gestures, and shared forms of transition. Today, they are largely ignored. Yet the human being still passes through them — whether consciously or not.

What makes these passages difficult is not the activity itself, but the absence of form. In the threshold, one is briefly without orientation. The question silently arises: What carries me from here to there?

This question is rarely answered consciously.

Substitutes for the missing gesture

It is striking that many habitual gestures — smoking, snacking, scrolling, constant stimulation — occur precisely in the passages between activities. These are not random moments of weakness. They appear where the etheric continuity loosens and the organism seeks:

• warmth,
• rhythm,
• containment,
• a sense of boundary.

Such gestures function as substitutes. They artificially manage the transition that should be carried by the human I. They provide rhythm (inhale/exhale, swipe/refresh), warmth, and repetition — but they do so from below, through substance and nerve, rather than from within, through formative activity.

What appears as “addiction” is often a displaced formative act.

The task of the I in the threshold

The passage from one moment to the next is not meant to be endured passively. It is meant to be formed.

This is the quiet work of the I.

The I does not manage thresholds by thinking or analyzing, but by doing — through simple, often unnoticed formative gestures that:

• release the previous moment without falling into emptiness,
• prepare the next without rushing,
• establish continuity across the gap.

Such gestures need not be elaborate. They may take the form of:

• a conscious pause,
• a deliberate step across a doorway,
• a moment of uprightness,
• a change of breathing without object,
• a brief inner acknowledgment that something has ended and something new is beginning.

What matters is not the form, but the activity of the I.

Why this matters now

We live in an age of interrupted time. The weakening of natural rhythms has shifted the burden of continuity onto the individual. If the I does not take up this task, it is taken over by habits, substances, or technologies that manage transitions on our behalf.

This is not a moral failure. It is a structural situation of modern consciousness.

To become aware of thresholds is already to begin inhabiting them differently.

A quiet re-learning

To stand consciously in a passage between moments — without rushing to fill it — is a subtle but decisive act. It restores the human being as the carrier of their own time.

In such small, almost invisible acts, the I reclaims its role as the formative center of continuity.

The art of passage is not something to be added to life.
It is something to be remembered.