When I was little, I spent so much time looking through my mother’s magazines. I was completely fascinated by the images, maybe even fair to say obsessed.
Sure, I longed for the beautiful clothes, and I wanted to emulate the beautiful women, but it was something more… something about the feeling of those images—something so secure in their stillness.
To me, everyone in those pages looked like they were worthy enough to be known and connected with by people who genuinely appreciated them.
And I wanted that same feeling for myself.
Not the feeling I had—where nothing was seen and everything felt neglected, especially me.
So I became very much indoctrinated into this idea that life should be a still-life—beautiful enough to be seen by everyone as mattering in the shiny pages of life.
But every time I tried saving up for things that looked similar and every time I organized myself and my belongings to look like I mattered in this way—time would pass, and I’d find myself sitting there with the same boredom and restlessness I felt before, along with the same painful longing to be seen and connected with.
I was still, like in those still-life images—but remained neglected, with nothing to do.
No matter how hard I tried to manufacture an appearance of worthiness, my thoughts always melted back into hopelessness.
It took me years to realize that the challenge of life isn’t to make things look like they matter—beautiful enough or together enough or credentialed enough—it’s about figuring out who we are—by noticing what’s beautiful to us and what’s meaningful to us—and by connecting with these things—and being involved and fulfilled by these things in the movement of life. Not the still-life of life.
Sure, we’ll get stuck, frazzled and afraid to move, not sure who we need to look like or who we need to be or what we need to do, but we can always shift from being stuck in the appearance of life by remembering to notice how we feel in the movement of life. Because everywhere, there is movement. Even in stillness.
And at any given moment, we can join in this movement of life, by simply paying attention to what’s going on and noticing what we’re moved by.
When we allow ourselves to feel moved by the movement of life, we can let it lead us towards more of what’s meaningful and beautiful to us.
And on the way, we’ll meet like-minded people who are available to connect with us as we are, instead who we thought we needed to be.
-JLK
