Between Everywhere and Nowhere

Tag: self-reflection

  • Is It Possible to Know a Person?

    Is It Possible to Know a Person?

    “This is so you.”

    “Did you really do this?”

    “I never expected this from you.”

    We all say or hear these sentences. But what makes us so certain of our assumptions?

    When do we decide that we know a person?

    Is it really knowing? Or are we simply good at recognizing patterns? And if so, is this a misconception, or a practical reality we have learned to rely on?

    They say you can know a person only to the extent that they allow you to. But what if knowing someone is, at least partly, about recognizing the patterns in their behavior? Patterns that, through repetition, become familiar enough to shape our expectations of who that person is.

    But are these patterns entirely theirs? If our presence can trigger, reinforce, or even call for certain patterns in another person, might we also be participating in the very patterns we have come to recognize?

    And if so, how much of what we recognize in them reflects something about us? Are we merely observing these patterns, or are we also helping to create them?

    When someone begins to feel like a stranger, what has actually changed? Have they started behaving in unfamiliar ways, or has something in us changed, making a familiar pattern no longer work as it once did? Could what we experience as estrangement reflect a change in ourselves, or in the dynamic between us? Perhaps the pattern has not simply disappeared; perhaps it no longer works, or needs to change.

    Is it really possible to know a person? Or is recognizing their patterns enough?

    And what does it mean to recognize these patterns well? If they allow us to anticipate another person’s behavior, can this understanding become a form of control? Or does familiarity itself offer a sense of security? Perhaps this is why we grow so attached to what we know.

    And when someone breaks a familiar pattern, could the discomfort we feel sometimes go beyond surprise, even resembling a sense of betrayal?

    At what point does recognizing a pattern become a way of influencing it? And how much of the pattern itself can we shape?

    Should we embrace the possibilities of the unknown, or cling more tightly to what we have learned to recognize? Can the familiar and the unknown coexist in a kind of yin and yang?

    What, in these patterns, belongs to them, and what belongs to us?

    Or is it nonsense even to ask these questions?

    Artworks: 1 Rêverie au bord du lac d’Annecy, Marcel Rieder

    2 Veillée devant la Mer Méditerranée, Côte d’Azur, Marcel Rieder

    3 Soirée romantique, Marcel Rieder

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  • Colorless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously

    Colorless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously

    Colorless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously. 

    Wise words by Noam Chomsky? Maybe not exactly. But I wonder what has sparked before your eyes and inside your mind when you first bump into this sentence.

    Can something be both colorless and green at the same time? Can something sleep, and do so furiously? Can all of these qualities possibly be attributed to “ideas”?

    With this sentence, you have actually just encountered a flagship of the field of syntax in linguistics. Noam Chomsky used this phrase to demonstrate that a sentence can be perfectly correct in its grammar while making little or no logical sense at all. However, I have always found myself thinking about it beyond its syntactic purpose.

    More or less, we expect everything we do or encounter to carry some degree of logical and structural coherence. We tend to look for things that fit together, make sense, and belong together. We tend to consider things that fit into our ready-made intellectual systems more legitimate, often without questioning them too much.

    But perhaps coherence does not always have to mean similarity or consistency. As this sentence suggests, something can contain apparent ambiguity, opposition, or even contradiction, and still form a whole of its own.

    Maybe this is what has always intrigued me about it. Colorless and green seem to cancel each other out. Sleep and furiously do not seem to belong to the same action. And yet, put them together, and we recognize a sentence. Not a traditionally sensible one, perhaps, but a sentence nonetheless. The contradictions do not prevent the words from forming something whole.

    That made me think about how often we expect the things around us to be compatible before we allow them to belong together. We like our ideas to be coherent, our arguments to be well-structured, our choices to make sense. We polish them, arrange them, and make sure nothing seems out of place. Maybe because we carry the silent conscious fear of being undermined or criticized for our self-expression.

    But does something really become more meaningful simply because all its pieces agree with one another?

    And on the other hand, does something become less meaningful when they do not? Who, or what, decides the extent of meaningfulness? At what point does something become absolute nonsense?

    An idea does not necessarily have to dress in haute couture, wear expensive perfume, and present itself impeccably to be valuable. It may arrive a little untidy. It may contradict itself somewhere along the way. It may not know exactly how to introduce itself, or fit neatly into the structure we were expecting. That does not necessarily make what it carries any less worth considering.

    I find myself going back and forth between these two thoughts without knowing where one ends and the other begins.

    We seem to have a strong preference for things that match. We call them coherent, consistent, logical. We often treat these qualities almost as proof that something belongs together.

    But Colorless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously does something rather odd with that expectation. Its elements contradict one another, and yet the contradiction does not destroy the whole. It is, in a way, precisely what makes the sentence what it is.

    So, I start wondering whether we sometimes mistake agreement for coherence.

    Whether things really need to resemble one another, support one another, or even make sense beside one another in order to form something meaningful.

    I don’t know if they do.

    The more I think about it, the more this starts to feel a little like asking whether the chicken came before the egg. If I insist on finding which one comes first, I am already assuming that there has to be a first one.

    Perhaps I am doing something similar here, trying to decide what makes a whole coherent when the very things that make it up may not have much in common at all.

    And maybe that is why I keep coming back to this sentence occasionally.

    Not because it makes sense, or nonsense. Quite the opposite.

    It doesn’t, and yet it holds together.

    It reminds me, sometimes, that perhaps we can allow something to exist without putting too much pressure on ourselves to attribute some grand, almost biblical meaning to it. What seems to neutralize or diminish meaning when placed together may, in fact, create an unexpected harmony that jiggles a corner of our minds.

    Sometimes a structure is enough. Sometimes an ambiguity is enough. Sometimes none of it is enough. Or sometimes everything is enough.

    What decides what, anyway?

    Maybe we sometimes feel unsatisfied because we do not dare to create our own colorless green ideas. We dismiss the possibility that it is up to us to decide that our ideas can sleep in a furious way.

    I don’t know.

    It seems to me that we are too invested in labeling everything, even our way of thinking. We want to know where something belongs before allowing ourselves to see what it might become. We keep trying to place things inside familiar structures, stuffing them with what we already recognize as consistent ideas.

    But perhaps the interesting part is what happens when something does not quite fit.

    It may be, for you, a serene uproar, dull neon yellow, a stupid genius idea, the silent conscious fear I mentioned above, or maybe sweet-chili sauce. The last one does not contradict itself in your mind because, in some cultures, people dared to put those things together and it worked out perfectly fine.

    I think one way or another, everyone has a system, a structure of their own. But we may miss the plot twist by focusing too much on filling that structure with what we already know as consistent.

    Maybe we just need to let our ideas flow without constantly considering whether they carry some universal meaning. And perhaps we should ask: meaning according to what, or whom?

    At some point, especially when we are trying to know ourselves or create a space that reflects us, we may need to become our own first expert.

    Whatever we do or intend to create does not necessarily have to produce a “universal for others” outcome. It may be applauded, but perhaps part of that applause comes simply from our senses becoming accustomed to it. We grow familiar with certain forms, certain structures, certain ways of making sense.

    I think sometimes we should question the universe inside us, and the universality we keep trying to produce from it.

    Maybe your universe wants to do something not out of the box, but in the corner of the box. Or even in front of the box.

    There is something comforting in the idea that not everything has to become a universally recognizable shape before it is allowed to exist.

    I believe it is important to let something exist just for our own sake. And colorless green ideas show that perhaps it can take only one sentence to achieve that.

    We should allow ourselves to be, simply for the sake of being. To exist without immediately asking what that existence is supposed to mean.

    There must be more than coherence, biblical meaning, and flawless construction in what we aim to give life to, utter, create, or simply let rest inside a corner of our mind.

    Anything and everything is fine. What matters most, perhaps, is to pull up a chair for yourself without being too busy with universal expectations.

    There must be more than outer universality.

    We should not give up discovering the universe we carry simply by existing. Respecting that “self-universality” may eventually let us decorate the corners of that box. Maybe there will be no box in the future, but a circle, a hexagon, or something we have not named yet.

    And perhaps it is not “who knows?” anymore, but “who decides to do that?”

    There is something oddly satisfying about that contradiction. It makes me wonder how many things we might be trying too hard to make fit, simply because we have learned to associate harmony with agreement.

    Maybe they can contradict each other and still belong to the same whole.

    Maybe we do not always need to resolve the contradiction for the whole to remain intact.

    Or maybe I am just giving a rather elaborate meaning to a sentence about colorless green ideas sleeping furiously.

    I suppose I don’t mind either way.

    Colorless green ideas can sleep furiously, or even furiously green ideas can sleep colorlessly.

    So, what about your ideas? Would you bring green and colorless together? Would you let something sleep furiously?

    Up to you.

    Artwork: Aurora Borealis, Frederic Edwin Church

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  • It Is a Good Idea to Read Children’s Books

    It Is a Good Idea to Read Children’s Books

    Whenever I visit a bookstore, my first approach is always towards the children’s books shelf. I have a habit of collecting books for the children around me, and I often give children’s books as presents to people who have started learning a new language.

    There is a certain peace at that shelf.

    For a long time, I could not quite explain why I kept returning to it. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was thinking, “One day, I will write about this.” Then, a few days ago, at a completely unrelated shelf in a bookstore, I came across Why You Should Read Children’s Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise by Katherine Rundell. I immediately took it as a sign that this might be my next topic.

    I am glad that bookshelves speak to me in their own ways.

    We generally talk about “children” as if we were never there before. What made us so distant from the reality of being children ourselves? Is it simply because the Earth completed a few more rotations around the Sun and we decided that this was enough reason to cut our ties with that part of ourselves?

    Rundell writes about the way we move through books. First, we read Spot the Dog, then Peter and Jane, then Narnia, then young adult novels, and eventually “graduate” into adult literature. Somewhere along the way, many of us begin to treat returning to children’s books as a step backwards, as if looking back meant losing status.

    I find that idea fascinating because it feels so familiar.

    We often speak about reading as a journey of advancement, but I am not sure that returning to a children’s book is a retreat. Sometimes it feels more like returning to a place where things are still close to their core.

    That is what children’s books have always been for me: a portal back to the core.

    Not necessarily to a particular childhood memory, but to something more fundamental. A reminder that anything and everything can be simple, yet touching and meaningful.

    We feel happy. We feel exhausted. We experience grief. We experience jealousy. Sometimes we struggle to accept our physical features. Sometimes we simply want to be understood.

    These things have always existed, and they always will.

    They are some of the core experiences of being human.

    Think about a place you have visited as an adult. Think about a goal you achieved, or something you wanted very much but could never quite make work.

    When you read a children’s book about such a thing, do you remember the wind of that place against your face? Do you remember the humidity settling on your skin? Do you remember what you felt when you first set your sights on the thing you eventually achieved, and what achieving it actually made you feel?

    Or think about something that simply would not work, no matter how hard you tried. Have you ever allowed yourself to admit that perhaps the wisdom created by that experience has become part of you?

    This is where I see children’s books as a portal to awareness. They can take something we have already lived through as adults and bring us back to its simplest, most tangible core. They remind us not only of what happened, but of what it felt like to be there.

    There are simple yet profound answers to many of these experiences in the language of children’s books. Yes, we are capable of more complex reasoning now, and of course we should enjoy our cognitive abilities. Growing older allows us to analyze, compare, question and connect ideas in ways that we could not as children.

    But sometimes there is a particular joy in thinking and feeling plainly, without too much crowd around a thought.

    Children’s books often remind me of that.

    My own safe place was Charles Kingsley’s The Water-Babies. I still remember the sound of water I heard in those illustrations. And perhaps I never completely left that world behind; I can still take great pleasure in leaving the water behind and having pancakes with Pippi Longstocking.

    Looking back, I find it remarkable that a few drawings on a page could create such a vivid sensation. Yet that is precisely the kind of magic children’s books seem to carry. They allow us to experience ideas, emotions and entire worlds before we have learned to explain them.

    I also visit the children’s shelf regularly to see what is happening in the childhoods of other cultures.

    What do children feel? What do they like to spread on their bread? What do they find funny? What are they curious about? What kinds of friendships, families and adventures fill their stories? Do they wear socks all summer, or run barefoot into the sea? Which questions are adults choosing to place into their hands?

    Those children will become teenagers, young adults and eventually adults in only a few years.

    There is something strangely emotional about that thought.

    The illustrations and stories I encounter today may offer a small glimpse into the future generation of people I will one day meet. In that sense, children’s books are not only windows into childhood; they are also small maps of the generations that are still growing.

    When you pick up a children’s book, you stand somewhere between the child you once were, the adult you have become, and the generation that comes after you.

    Perhaps that is another reason I find that shelf so peaceful.

    Of course, not every children’s book is profound. When people hear “children’s literature,” they may think of colorful dinosaur series jumping through sand dunes or other books that exist simply to entertain. And that is perfectly fine. Not every book needs to contain a grand lesson about the human condition.

    Yet even those books tell us something. They become part of a generation’s shared references, shared jokes and shared memories. They, too, contribute to the cultural inheritance that children carry with them into adulthood.

    The dynamics of life may seem complex, but so much of life begins with the simple depictions we find in children’s books. Not only emotions, but also philosophers, planets, master composers, basic physics and countless other subjects. Children’s books rarely offer the final word on these things. Instead, they offer something perhaps more important:

    A beginning. A foundation.

    They introduce children to ideas before those ideas become academic subjects, professional interests or lifelong passions. They help children name feelings before those feelings become difficult to carry. They offer companions in the form of characters who are frightened, curious, lonely, brave, confused or hopeful.

    In that sense, children’s books are already helping to build the foundations of healthy adulthood.

    Perhaps that is why I find myself thinking not only about reading children’s books, but also about making sure that children can reach them. If these books are such meaningful portals, perhaps one of the simplest things we can do as adults is to help keep that portal open. We can give books as gifts, share our favorites, and support the local libraries that quietly place entire worlds within a child’s reach.

    The dynamics of life become increasingly complicated as we grow older. Yet underneath that complexity, many things remain surprisingly simple.

    As in fairy tales, if there is fear, there is courage; if there is hardship, there is determination; if there is hunger, there is a way to satisfy it. But perhaps it is not the opposite poles of these experiences that matter most, but what happens in between — and where we decide to stand in the end.

    The child reading that book wants to understand and to be understood. They want to belong. They are curious about the world around them. They search for meaning. They search for connection. So do you, adult. The core has never changed.

    Children’s books do not necessarily bring us back to childhood. Our adulthood is, in many ways, already an extension of that childhood.

    I believe they simply bring us a little closer to the core of what it means to be human.

    And perhaps that is why, whenever I walk into a bookstore, I still find myself returning to that shelf.

    Artwork: Katjesspel, Henriëtte Ronner-Knip

    2 responses to “It Is a Good Idea to Read Children’s Books”

    1. theharlequinheart Avatar
      theharlequinheart

      I recently re-read ‘Danny the Champion of the World’ by Roald Dahl. I first read it when I was nine. I was part of the upper-reading book club in primary school (the top group – there were four of us and we had a reading table all to ourselves). Upon reading it, I was instantly transport back into both the warmth I had felt reading it, and the experience of being amongst that top group. It felt wonderful, but with it came a certain sadness that I’ll never get to experience that childlike wonder of a book – though as an adult, we appreciate it in different ways.

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      1. betweeneverywhereandnowhere Avatar
        betweeneverywhereandnowhere

        Thank you for inviting me to the table of your book club in primary school, and for letting me meet the adult version of that child 🙂 I think that “sadness” may be one of the powerful seeds that allows you to transport yourself back to that reading table. I think that is beautiful.

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  • I Used My Natal Chart…

    I Used My Natal Chart…

    …To Better Understand My Life Path

    I think anything and everything can be a means of understanding our minds, our lives, the dynamics surrounding us, and so on.

    As I mentioned before, I have been interested in astrology for some time now. Honestly, I do not take astrology as fortune-telling or a way of predicting the future. I rather see it as a way of attributing some meaning retrospectively — a different lens through which I can look at my own life.

    In order to better understand what my existence might mean to me, I decided to take my natal chart into account. Of course, none of this is science-backed or concrete. Still, there is something fascinating — even a little fluttering — about the thought that the universe, the planets, and their mathematical relationships might have left some kind of imprint at the very moment you started breathing in this world.

    It may mean something. Or it may mean nothing.

    But I find it interesting to look at it anyway.

    Honestly, my natal chart seems to have received quite a generous share of oppositions and squares — the so-called challenging aspects — rather than conjunctions, trines, and sextiles, which are generally considered more harmonious. It is often said that having more harmonious aspects may indicate that life flows more easily.

    Apparently, I was not given the smoothest possible version of the tutorial.

    Sun Square Saturn

    This is one of the most prominent aspects of my natal chart.

    While the Sun represents core identity, self-expression, authority, and, traditionally, the father, Saturn is associated with restrictions, delays, responsibility, maturity, and limitations. When they form a square, no wonder it is considered a difficult aspect.

    I have even come across a few places saying something along the lines of, “We feel very sorry when we see this aspect in a woman’s chart.” One can easily be convinced that this aspect means lower self-esteem, hardships in life, delays in self-realization, problems with authority, even difficulties involving one’s father, and so on.

    But I think there is something easily underestimated here.

    If you were born under this aspect, and if Sun Square Saturn is one of the main themes of your life, then never forget that you are a Sun Square Saturn, too.

    You develop endurance because your life requires it. You become patient because things take time. You learn to think strategically because not everything can be forced.

    And once you realize and accept that this is simply one of the ways your life tends to unfold, you stop spending so much energy asking, “Why me?”. Instead, you start moving forward consciously, knowing what you are dealing with.

    Here is the perk of a difficult aspect: not an easy life, but a stronger self. And a stronger self knows how to appreciate what it has achieved.

    You know how much effort, patience, and intention went into it. You appreciate it more consciously and more maturely, because you know exactly what it took to get there.

    And what you build may stay with you longer, simply because you were an active and conscious part of building it.

    Moon Opposition Mercury-Jupiter-Uranus-Neptune

    My Cancer Moon forms oppositions to all of the planets I mentioned above in Capricorn, with the exception of my Aquarius Uranus.

    This opposition is also considered one of the more challenging configurations, as it creates a tension between the Cancer-Capricorn axis.

    According to astrology, my life would always be somewhat of a rollercoaster between my emotional and material needs.

    And honestly, my emotional side can be in turbulence almost all the time.

    Yet, I am still grateful for the tension this aspect represents.

    First of all, I know and respect my feelings.

    I know how my body and mind tend to react to a certain feeling. I have learned to recognize my emotional surges. I am learning when to simply feel and when to step back and think.

    I have learned to get to know both my mind and my emotional side because of this turbulence.

    Maybe Saturn saved me with its trine in this case. Who knows?

    The more I read about astrology and think about life paths, the more I realize that perhaps everything we go through can somehow navigate us towards what we are supposed to do.

    From an astrological perspective, the North Node is said to give us clues about our journey in this lifetime.

    North Node in Libra in the 5th House

    The more I looked into my chart, the more I became interested in the idea of the North Node.

    Mine is in Libra, a sign associated with harmony, diplomacy, justice, partnership, and balance. It is also in the 5th house, traditionally associated with pleasure, joy, creativity, art, self-expression, and the things we do simply because they make us feel alive.

    So perhaps all the turbulence I mentioned above is also leading me somewhere very different from where I might instinctively go.

    Perhaps I am meant to learn to express myself without putting pressure on myself to be flawless.

    To deliberately choose the lightness of life. To enjoy art and music.

    To spend time with people and build meaningful bonds. To allow myself to experience pleasure without feeling that I first have to earn it.

    And maybe, most importantly, to understand that life does not always have to be a problem that needs solving.

    But what did my chart give me to work with in order to get there, apart from all the rollercoaster rides?

    Jupiter Conjunction Mercury & My Gemini Ascendant

    When I retrospectively analyze my natal chart, I like to think that this aspect points towards one small corner of the direction suggested by my North Node.

    Jupiter conjunct Mercury is said to be associated with an interest in writing, a love of learning, curiosity, broad thinking, problem-solving, and many other things that I happen to enjoy.

    My Gemini Ascendant seems to reinforce the same theme. Gemini is associated with curiosity, communication, collecting information, making connections between ideas, and, naturally, words.

    So maybe the universe did not necessarily want me to have an easy life.

    Maybe it wanted me to exist among all the crises while feeding my brain, trying to understand who I truly am, and sharing what I think — even if what I think is not exactly rocket science.

    Perhaps this is why writing feels less like a separate activity and more like one of the ways I make sense of all of it.

    And Apparently, I Have the Potential to Be an Alchemist

    There is another interpretation of my chart that I find particularly amusing.

    When the aspects in my chart are interpreted as a whole, I am said to have the potential of an alchemist — someone who can transform difficulties into something meaningful, turning the heavier experiences of life into something valuable.

    I have to admit; I am not quite there yet. I am still in the phase of turning my life experiences into panic attacks rather than alchemy.

    Apparently, I still have some work to do.

    I am still learning how to navigate my difficult moments. I am still figuring out what certain experiences are trying to teach me, and sometimes I am simply trying to get through them.

    Maybe that is also part of the process.

    Perhaps we do not always have to become as impressive as our supposed potential suggests.

    Maybe not being the “alchemist”, our chart promises us to be just yet is also a way of flowing with life.

    Maybe we are allowed to be ordinary while becoming who we are supposed to become.

    Maybe This Is What the Chart Is For

    Life — or simply the dynamics around us — makes us face a lot of challenges.

    I do not think squares and oppositions have to be interpreted as punishments, just as I do not think trines and sextiles are guarantees of an easy life.

    Perhaps they can simply be ways of looking at the things we repeatedly encounter in ourselves.

    The point, for me, is not whether my natal chart actually predicted my life. It probably did not.

    The point is that looking at it made me notice things I had already experienced but had never put into words.

    It made me look at my difficulties from a little distance.

    It made me think about what they have taught me, what they have taken from me, and, perhaps more importantly, what they have given me.

    Perhaps, in this lifetime, we are meant to learn when to be selective like Saturn — to practice Schopenhauer’s hedgehog dilemma, finding a distance where we are close enough to form a warm circle, but far enough not to reach each other’s spines. Perhaps Saturn’s rings remind us that stability does not always mean keeping the world away, but having enough gravity to decide what becomes part of our orbit.

    Perhaps we are meant to become aware of our power like the Sun — of the fact that the same force that nourishes can also burn — and learn to shape that power through our will and reason.

    Perhaps we are meant to learn from the Moon that nurturing does not mean having no boundaries. That we can care deeply for others while still protecting the parts of ourselves that need protection.

    Perhaps we are meant to become mature enough, like Jupiter, to decide what deserves to grow.

    Because not everything we encounter needs to be expanded.

    Not every thought needs more attention, not every desire needs to become a pursuit, and not every possibility needs to become a reality.

    Maybe that is what all these symbols are ultimately pointing towards: not becoming someone who has mastered every aspect of life, but becoming someone who knows what to do with what the flow has given them.

    Maybe we are not meant to get rid of all those sharp corners in our charts, but to smooth them out until we create our own version of a harmonious flow.

    Maybe we are meant to look at our squares and oppositions as aesthetic objects, move through them, and use them as portals to a more mature version of ourselves.

    Or maybe we are simply meant to find our conjunctions and sextiles without constantly bumping into the corners of our squares and bruising ourselves along the way.

    Maybe we are allowed to decide what it all means.

    Maybe what we want is exactly what is supposed to happen.

    Or maybe even thinking that way is part of the plan.

    Who knows?

    Note: If you are interested in the symbolic and romantic meanings attached to the planets, you might also want to listen to Gustav Holst’s The Planets. It is a completely different way of imagining the planets. Another way of hearing the harmony in all of this.

    Artwork: Vid insjön. Motiv från Balingsta, Oscar Björck

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  • Am I Really Your Sunshine?

    Am I Really Your Sunshine?

    You are my sunshine,
    My only sunshine…

    Such gentle, romantic words from such a gentle song.
    Soft enough to feel safe, simple enough to believe without questioning.

    But when someone says, “you are my sunshine,” I find myself asking:
    What does it really mean?

    The Sun is everything we associate with warmth and life.
    It nourishes. It grows. It makes existence possible. 
    And yet, that same Sun burns.
    It dries. It exhausts.

    Not out of intention, not out of emotion, but simply because this is what it is.

    Everything revolves around it — not because it is loved, but because it cannot be escaped.

    And maybe that is the part we don’t really think about.

    That the same source that feeds us is also, slowly and inevitably, consuming us.

    The Sun is not doing us a favor. It is not choosing to give, and it is not choosing to take.
    It simply exists in its own nature, and everything else learns how to live with it — or doesn’t.

    And I think that is why the word “sunshine” has never felt entirely soft to me.

    Because some people are like that.

    Not necessarily cruel.
    Not necessarily kind either.

    Just… intense in a way that changes things.

    They don’t enter your life with a clear intention to transform you.
    But their presence alone makes that transformation almost unavoidable.

    If not you, then someone else.
    If not now, then eventually.

    And sometimes, without even realizing it, the ones who need change the most
    are the ones who move closest to that kind of light.

    But maybe the real question was never about transformation.

    Because it will happen anyway. It always does.

    The real question is what kind of change you are standing close to.

    Will it warm you enough to grow, to become something fuller, more alive?

    Or will it take everything you have built and slowly burn it down, piece by piece?

    I might be your sunshine.

    But light is never just light.

    Will I warm you, help you grow into something fuller, more alive — or will I draw a circle of fire around you and keep you there until there is nothing left but something dry enough to burn?

    Is there even a middle ground, or is that just something we tell ourselves to stay a little longer?

    Please don’t take my sunshine away…

    What happens after you find your sun?

    Do you stay close out of warmth or out of fear of losing it?

    Do you begin to orbit, slowly forgetting your own direction?

    Everyone needs transformation at some point.
    The Sun is transformative by its very existence.

    But again — it is not the Sun.

    It is you.

    Is it up to you what to do with this force placed into your life?

    Will your snow withstand the light, or disappear beneath it?

    So, what will you do?

    Will you use the brightness to clear your vision, or let it blind you?

    Will you keep moving closer, mistaking the brightness for safety?

    Or will you recognize the heat for what it is and trace back the quiet marks
    it has already left on you?

    Again, the light was never the question.

    It was always you.

    Woman Before the Rising Sun, Caspar David Friedrich

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  • What Do You Feel?

    What Do You Feel?

    You woke up and started the day.

    What do you truly feel?

    Busy schedules, traffic jams, overpriced tags on the shelves…
    Life moves fast, almost mechanically.

    But somewhere in between all this — what is it that you actually feel?

    Have you ever paused, even for a minute, to notice what is passing through your mind, your heart, your body?
    Not only to explain or justify it, but simply to notice it.

    What is “to feel” anyway?
    Dictionaries define it simply as experiencing something physical or emotional. A simple definition for something that rarely feels simple.

    We know many names for what we feel: happy, sad, overwhelmed, devastated, embarrassed, angry.

    But there are moments when none of these quite fit — moments when language feels insufficient, and we find ourselves explaining a single feeling with entire paragraphs.

    Maybe the problem is not that we don’t feel enough.
    Maybe we just don’t always have the words.

    And when we don’t have the words, we sometimes begin to treat the feeling itself as if it doesn’t quite belong — as if it is too vague, too much, or simply unnecessary.

    But perhaps it is not the feeling that is unfamiliar, only the language surrounding it.

    I have never been someone who is consumed by emotions, nor someone who ignores them.

    I tend to sit with them, to make sense of them — sometimes at length.

    I could write pages about a single feeling.

    And yet, sometimes, what I look for is just one word.
    One term that reminds me I am not the only one who has felt this.

    This is where languages quietly step in.

    What has always fascinated me about them is this:
    Some seem to have paused longer on certain emotions — long enough to give them a name.

    There are moments when time suddenly feels limited — when you start measuring your life against invisible deadlines, and a quiet anxiety settles in.
    Not loud, not dramatic, but persistent.
    In German, there is a word for this: Torschlusspanik.

    Or those rare moments when you are completely immersed in the present — when nothing else seems to exist beyond what you are living right now.
    A kind of joy that is calm rather than loud.
    In Welsh, they call this Hwyl.

    Or the restless anticipation of waiting for someone — checking the door, looking outside, feeling time stretch in an almost physical way.
    In Inuit, this becomes Iktsuarpok.

    And then there is that quiet, almost bittersweet awareness that something is beautiful precisely because it will pass.
    Not despite its impermanence, but because of it.
    The Japanese have a word for this: Mono no aware.

    Even the darker corners of being human have found their place in language.

    That subtle, uncomfortable moment when someone else’s misfortune brings a sense of satisfaction you didn’t ask for.
    In German: Schadenfreude.

    If you notice closely, these words do more than describe emotions.
    They carry their weight, their rhythm, their texture.
    Some feel light, others heavy. Some linger longer than others.

    And perhaps this is where something deeper reveals itself:

    Being human may be a shared condition, but the way we are allowed to experience it is not always the same.

    Some cultures make space for certain emotions, while others leave them unnamed — and therefore, often unnoticed.

    And when a feeling has no name in the language we live in,
    it becomes easier to overlook it.
    Not because it is insignificant, but because it has nowhere to stay.

    Yet these experiences are not foreign to us.

    Perhaps learning new words for emotions is not just about language.
    Perhaps it is a way of recognizing parts of ourselves we couldn’t quite name before — not because they were absent, but because they were never fully acknowledged.

    Because to feel is not always loud.
    It is not only a racing heartbeat or a visible reaction.
    Sometimes it sits quietly — in your chest, in your stomach, behind your eyes — waiting to be noticed.

    And when a feeling feels too complex, too layered to be named,
    it might help to remember this:

    Somewhere else, in another language, shaped by another way of seeing the world, someone has already felt it deeply enough to name it.

    You are not alone in your feelings — even when your own language does not seem to have a place for them.

    And maybe learning these words is not only about understanding others, but about finally making space for ourselves.

    If you are curious to explore more of these emotions and the words that hold them, you might enjoy The Book of Human Emotions by Tiffany Watt Smith.

    Artwork: A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, Georges Seurat

    2 responses to “What Do You Feel?”

    1. The Luttie Board Avatar
      The Luttie Board

      I like how incredible you are in the way you blend emotion, culture, and language together.

      Liked by 1 person

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      1. betweeneverywhereandnowhere Avatar
        betweeneverywhereandnowhere

        Thank you! I’m really glad you felt that!

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