The Wheel That Never Stops

There is a kind of suffering that looks like motion.

It moves fast. It sweats. It chases. It builds.

But it never breaks out.

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I used to speak with people I thought were walking beside me.

Turns out, they were just spinning in place.

In loops made of inherited fear, quiet desperation, and dreams buried beneath “just one more month.”

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I didn’t see it at first.

Because from the inside, the loop looks like effort.

From the inside, they look “busy.”

From the inside, survival feels like purpose.

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But survival is not life.

Survival is the wheel.

And the wheel never stops.

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It offers just enough — just enough dopamine, just enough sleep, just enough hope — to keep spinning.

But it never changes terrain.

It moves, but it doesn’t arrive.

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And what I learned is this:

Some people are not trapped — they’re invested.

Invested in the loop.

Invested in the idea that one day the wheel will carry them somewhere new.

It won’t.

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You can’t teach someone to step off the wheel if their whole identity is built on pushing it.

You can’t awaken someone who uses exhaustion as evidence that they’re alive.

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I had to step away to see it.

To stop mistaking suffering for sacredness.

To stop bleeding for others who chose not to heal.

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It’s not cruelty. It’s clarity.

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Some people will never loop out.

Not because they’re cursed, but because they can’t imagine stillness.

Can’t imagine still being free.

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And so they’ll spin.

Forever busy. Forever tired.

Forever almost.

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As for me —

I walk now.

I arrive now.

And I no longer confuse movement with becoming.