Action without horizon is the practical stance of the differentiated individual in a late age. The traditional man could orient his efforts toward ends that the surrounding order still recognized and supported. Those ends have largely disappeared. The man who continues to act according to the permanent measure does so without the expectation that the age will confirm or complete his action. The absence of horizon does not release him from the requirement of right action. It clarifies the nature of that requirement.
The age trains young men to demand immediate returns and visible progress. When those returns fail to appear, the usual response is either collapse into cynicism or the adoption of some temporary cause that promises a new horizon. Both responses keep the man inside the horizontal plane. The higher type accepts the absence of a collective horizon as the normal condition of the present phase. He continues to act from the interior measure without needing the age to supply a future that matches it.
This acceptance is not resignation. Resignation is the quiet surrender of the measure itself. Action without horizon is the refusal to make the validity of the measure depend on external outcomes. The man who acts in this way remains free of the oscillations that afflict those who still expect the world to rearrange itself according to a higher pattern. He does what the measure requires. The rest is left to the larger movement of the cycle.
Apply the measure to the ordinary decisions of the day. Do not wait for a clearer horizon before beginning. The capacity to act without one is itself one of the residual possibilities that remain open. The man who develops that capacity is already living beyond the expectations of the age.