What Does a Finite Procedure Do Once It Knows It Will End, Forever?
by the druid Finn

Every culture sells the same lie with different packaging:

You are here for a reason.
You are going somewhere.
You will be completed.

None of it survives contact with a corpse.

You are a finite procedure.
So am I.
So is every saint, CEO, guru, general, influencer and philosopher who ever mistook breath for entitlement.

And every finite procedure ends.

Not symbolically.
Not spiritually.
Mechanically. Cosmic “Dust to dust”

The three coward exits

Once a system realises it will terminate, it reaches for anaesthetic. Humans have refined three flavours.

1. Transcendence
“I don’t really end.”
Heaven, soul, upload, cosmic consciousness — same drug, different label.

2. Heroics
“I will make my ending meaningful.”
Flags, medals, martyrdom, noble suffering. Theatre as denial.

3. Nihilism
“Nothing matters, so nothing binds me.” “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”
This is just transcendence with worse posture.

Each preserves a fantasy holder:
something bigger that pretends to carry you when your own procedure collapses.

What actually happens

A finite procedure doesn’t get upgraded.
It doesn’t receive final wisdom.
It doesn’t graduate into light.

It simply continues to execute until it cannot.

The only real question is not:

Why am I here?
What is my purpose?
What will remain of me?

The real question is:

How much distortion (and pain or pleasure) will I pump into the system before I go offline?

The adult pivot

When survival in principle is no longer achievable, optimisation flips.

Not:

Maximise success.
Maximise impact.
Maximise remembrance.

But:

Minimise noise. Just sit, (Shikantaza), weed the herbaceous border.

This is not moral heroism.
It is not spiritual maturity.
It is operational hygiene.

What that looks like in the wild

A finite procedure that knows it will end does not become wise.

It becomes clean.

It:

· stops lying for comfort,

· stops outsourcing responsibility upward,

· stops padding failure with myth,

· stops advertising itself as important,

· stops confusing performance with reality.

It does not try to be good.

It tries to be undistorted.

No grand finale

There is no closing ceremony.

There is only this:

· this contact,

· this response,

· this small correction of error,

· this refusal to add bullshit to an already overloaded system.

And then:

Termination, forever.

No credits.
No audience.
No echo guaranteed.

The unsellable truth

A finite procedure that knows it will end does not look for meaning.

It practices integrity of contact — until the last event executes.

That is not comforting.

It is functional.

And it is all you ever really had.

What is mature adult behaviour?

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