Have you ever bumped into a piece of granitic gneiss? More specifically, a migmatitic gneiss?
This stone does not come from the Earth’s core, but from depths where pressure and heat are sufficient to reshape rock without melting it. Once granite, born from fire as an igneous rock, it later becomes gneiss, transformed under the slow, persistent force of the Earth’s crust. What changes is not its existence, but its structure; its identity reorganizes without destruction.
After this seemingly violent journey, it emerges with an elegant and solid presence. Its feldspar and quartz quietly shine, not loudly, not insistently. Watching and learning about this kind of transformation, it becomes almost impossible not to think about human endurance.
Perhaps the first step of endurance is accepting the dynamics of one’s own life. I accepted early on that my life could be turbulent most of the time. Yet it is less about what happens to us and more about what we choose to become, about where we decide to stand. What should happen has happened, is happening, and will happen anyway.
This solid rock reminds me of the capacity to make the best of pressure. Pressure does not always aim to destroy; sometimes, it reorganizes. The immense forces it faced did not cause it to fall apart, but to realign its internal structure, to transform without losing its essence
Diamonds are often presented as the ultimate symbol of endurance under pressure, a balance between pressure and elegance taken to its brightest extreme. But endurance does not always seek brilliance. Not everyone, and not everything, is meant to become visually outstanding.
I place myself much closer to granite gneiss: stable, solid, mostly grey, yet carrying its own quiet sparkles. It shines partially, without demanding attention, offering instead a sense of security, endurance, and silent elegance.
Between Everywhere and Nowhere 
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