Between the Real and the Imagined
Identity in Fragments and the Fear of Becoming
We often imagine growth as something visible, measurable — a journey from confusion to clarity. Bullsh!t. What if it’s something way quieter?
What if becoming yourself means learning to sit gently with the parts you don’t yet understand‽
Unreadable Inner Landscape
Lately, I’ve found myself in a strange emotional season, not quite a breakdown, but something more elusive. Neither depression nor the lack of Self (what's Self though‽).
A quiet existential unrest (if not a full-blown crisis) where being fully myself feels strangely risky. Not out of shame, but from a deeper fear:
“What if I disappoint even myself‽”
There are days when my thoughts feel scattered. Words won’t come neither as a writer nor as a reader.
And even when they do, they vanish mid-sentence, like they never quite belonged to me.
Psychologically, it’s like standing in a room with no furniture. Not empty, just undecorated. No place to rest.
There’s been imposter syndrome, a familiar presence, whispering you're only pretending to hold it together. There’s guilt, too! Over unread books, unwritten pages, and unfinished thoughts.
And beneath all that noise, a quiet forgetting: that I’m allowed to be a human — flawed, uncertain, tired, and still trying.
Yes, I can carry doubt and still show up.
Yes, I can feel lost and still write through it. But I can't.
As it doesn’t always make it easier.
As we grow older, metaphors like “miles to go before I sleep” begins to shift. They rather echo as reminders of all the unlived miles, the ones we never dared to walk, that now return like questions we left unanswered. (It's not about nostalgia either.)
Not Alone
In those quieter hours, I’ve recalled fragments from those moments of scrolling through the likes of Humans of New York, or similar projects in Copenhagen, Amsterdam, etcetera.
Photographs. Captions. Moments.
Each story as a small window into someone else’s unfinished life.
Empty.
They never offer solutions but they reminded me that we’re all carrying something. We’re not alone in this quiet disorientation.
Then I rediscovered the Human Library Project — a space where people become books, each with a title, each ready to be read, not judged.
That idea stayed with me for a bit.
I find it difficult to respect those who impose conclusions without immersion, who skim the surface, reducing lived complexity to headlines or heuristics.
It’s not just lazy; it’s evasive — a refusal to confront nuance, context, or the unconscious forces shaping what’s left unsaid.
And while I might acknowledge such choices as symptoms of detachment, projection, or emotional underdevelopment; I still question: what’s the purpose of validating someone who resists the very encounter that makes us human?
If I were a book, what would my title be‽
Would I tell my story in chapters, or just fragments? Could I allow myself to be read unfiltered and unrevised?
It made me wonder whether the fragments I share on Substack or elsewhere are expressions of my truth or performances of who I think I should be(‽).
Is this self-expression or self-preservation?
Am I being honest; or just polished?
Maybe the truth is this:
I’m still becoming. Still editing. Still learning to process the unresolved.
Like many of us trying to live a story that doesn’t need a dramatic arc, just a quiet space where someone might pause long enough to listen.
I don’t yet know where this season of inner stillness and fog is leading.
But I’m learning that inner thoughts mostly whisper through silence, asking only that we stay present long enough to hear ourselves.
And perhaps, for now, that’s exactly where I'm meant to be.
#unfiltered