Thought-provoking quote I came across in my readings today:

“A path has no value once you have arrived.” – Hujwiri

This is straight out of the canon of Muslim Sufism, which basically strips down Islam to a permanent in-the-moment experience with no past and no future. Thus, the act of discarding the means once the end is achieved.

Less mystically, it reminds me of the blase resistance I used to encounter when formatting published content for the insta-archiving and cross-categorization of Web presentation. It always amazed me how editors, writers, and other producers would purge themselves of their latest missives once deadline had come and gone, never looking back but always looking forward to the next piece. There’s a virtue in that, and plenty of people in all walks of life function that way. Still, so much for the value of institutional legacy.