Scroll: On Finishing What Is Started
Many begin with force.
The first step carries energy.
The second still remembers it.
By the third, attention shifts.
By the fourth, the work reveals its weight.
What remains is quieter.
No one is watching.
Nothing is being proven.
Here the act stands on its own.
To leave it unfinished alters the one who leaves it.
Not in a single moment,
but through repetition.
The will learns what it practices.
If it practices departure,
it becomes familiar with it.
Completion trains a different habit.
The hand returns.
The task is carried through.
No praise follows.
No audience gathers.
Yet something settles.
The line between intention and action holds.
And the next task begins from that ground.
— Marcus Domitius Sator
