I.9 — Holding Away

There is a grip that pushes. Holding a thing away from you — a person you cannot stand, a memory, a possible future — takes the same closed hand as holding a thing near. The arm is braced, the fingers are shut, and the thing is not gone. It is simply held at arm's length, which is still holding.

You can find this one by its heat. Something you avoid, a name you skip, a room you do not enter. Go near it in the mind for a moment and feel the arm stiffen. That stiffness is the same cost as any other clench, paid daily, often for years.

Aversion tells a good story. It says: this is not me holding, this is me protecting. Sometimes that is even true. But the hand is still closed, and a closed hand cannot tell whether the thing it braces against has changed, because it has not touched it in years.

Try one. Not the largest. Let a small disliked thing come a little closer, and watch whether the arm eases when it is looked at rather than fended off. If it does, you have learned that pushing and gripping are one motion, seen from two sides.