We learn to tolerate anything:
Spicy food,
Sugary thresholds,
Lying,
Noice.
Slowly a lot, becomes less,
Becomes normal,
Becomes nothing,
Becomes unbearably much.
We calibrate and re-calibrate blindly,
Figure X against figure Y,
Without knowing the average,
The median or extremes.
I finally catch a breath,
After holding and gasping.
But is it a full breath? Is it a real breath?
Our superpowers are my greatest fear: neuroplasticity, cognitive shortcuts, bias.
What am I inventing for the sake of feeling safe and normal?
What am I accepting to feel connected and included?
What am I seeing that isn’t there at all?
Slowly sinking to normal levels away from the tip and the edge of the gauge,
But for how long? Is it my norm to be chasing the high of perfection or am I playing pretend?
We talk about impostor syndrome in a role in a job, but how to tackle it in our own skin.
We are what others see us do? How can any account be seen as complete, concrete, and true?
Learning isn’t knowing all the answers. It’s knowing that beneath a question lurk a million more.
To stay on a learner’s path is to celebrate the finding of a question, three times more than the finding of an answer.
Because an answer lies in the eye of the beholder, but a question is.
Featured image:
Illustration from 2016/2017 showing the sense of pressure on the light by the oppressive darkness. An exploration on pointillism in black and white.
Illustrated by Meli 