The Moth and the Flame
Reflections on Desire, Devotion, and Being
A moth paused on my sleeve
and the night seemed to suggest
that meaning prefers motion to safety.
So it drifted toward the lantern’s glow,
pulled by the old geometry of desire,
where longing bends toward
whatever promises significance,
even at the price of unraveling.
I watched its wings quiver,
thin as pardoned errors,
each beat an argument against restraint,
each turn a quiet thesis on risk.
There are beings, I thought,
who love intensity more than duration,
who confuse burning with becoming,
and offer themselves to brightness
not from naivety,
but from the need to matter.
And in that fragile orbit,
something like reverence emerged
the moth circling the flame
as if devotion were a form of knowing,
as if choosing brilliance,
even briefly,
were its way of saying:
I was here, and I reached.
This piece is inspired by the articleBetween the Lines: Motion as Metaphor by @Mark Crutchfield.
I’m genuinely honoured by the reference, and even more so by how you carried the idea forward @Dipti Vyas.
Each piece is growing such beautiful wings.
What I like here is that the moth is never treated as foolish. The pull toward the flame isn’t framed as error, but as choice.
And that desire isn’t something that happens to the moth, it’s something it consents to.
“Meaning prefers motion to safety” quietly sets the ethic, but you take it somewhere distinctly your own.
Intensity over duration, not from naivety, but from conviction.
That final reach feels dignified rather than tragic.
Burning becomes a way of knowing, not a failure of restraint.
Thoughtful, reverent work.
Is there an idea here that touches on ‘false light’?
How we feel the need for enlightenment and rush towards it, how we want the exciting epiphany instead of the slow, steady realization. We crave to be seen, but at what cost?
A very thoughtful approach to the timeless metaphor, that offers a reflection of choice to the reader.