SaraIn a world where even the simple act of breathing increasingly feels like a struggle, complexity creeps into every corner of existence. A paradoxical game has begun: we search for explanations, diagnoses, definitions, and the more we find them, the less we seem to grasp life itself. The life instinct, that deep, primal force that once carried us through storms and into the arms of the unknown, now seems to fade quietly, drowned out by a chorus of self-analysis and intellectual dissection.
What was once immediate and wild, genuine, and spontaneous has now vanished into a dense fog of terms, categories, likes, and swipes. We ask about the nature of our needs and sexual conditions as if it could be broken down into parts and examined for functionality. We administer our relationships and misuse “loyalty” in doing so—every act and wish labeled as if this would guarantee some space. While we eagerly engage in the search for explanations and understanding, simplicity slips away—the immediacy, the untamed essence that brings a smile to our lips or tears to our eyes.
We are entangled in a hunger for life itself, driven by a sense that it must be earned, that we are not yet permitted to exist freely. So we reach and reach again, wanting attention, acknowledgment, love, intimacy, and understanding. And yet, joy does not reside in mere wanting—it is hidden in the act of becoming, in the unfolding and fluidity of desire. It appears in those moments when hope pulls us past our grasp of maturity, carrying us toward something unnamable, something yet to be lost. Until then, we live in the chasm between nature and culture, yearning to bridge it with words and achievements that only widen the gap.
In our quest to define ourselves, we forget the essential act of simply being. We overlook a need embedded so deeply in us it is inseparable from our breath: the desire to connect, to be held in uncomplicated closeness, to stand with others while fully sensing our own edges, our own desires.
They say, yes, that where another begins, we end. But was it ever so simple? In the dawn of life, we know nothing of boundaries. We feel the warmth of skin beside us, hear a voice that wraps us in belonging. There is no self, no separation, no need to analyze. And then, one day, we learn of a boundary, a gap between “I” and “You,” and this gap, once opened, never fully closes. We try to fill it with words and diagnoses, yet it remains—unsolved, stubborn, a silent witness to all we’ve lost. But instead of bridging it, we cling to its edges, feeding on the emptiness, waiting for another to complete it.
By defining ourselves through any means, we unintentionally carve out islands of isolation and loneliness, seeking connection through acknowledgment rather than bonding with an open heart. In our effort to be seen, to be recognized, we forget that true bonding comes not from labels or affirmations but from the raw, unguarded space where hearts meet without pretense or expectation. We are doing so much to prove our existence that we forget that simply being ourselves—being you—is what makes us special. In times when everyone and each one of us is reduced to a swipe, we find ourselves in a frenzy of survival, proving our existence to an invisible audience. In this mode, every act becomes a strategy, intimacy a transaction, and the recognition of the other as a full, singular being slips through our fingers—lost in the rush to convince ourselves we are real. And the adventure of discovering who we truly are? This gets swallowed by the ache of doing, achieving, displaying
Perhaps our suffering is nothing more than the absence of this immediacy, the loss of the innocence that once lived in us without question. When we were infants, utterly dependent and unable to survive alone, we were still alive with curiosity, eager to be part of the world. Yet, as we have grown, our competition to know, define, and identify has distanced us from the pure feeling of life. Life, it seems, does not thrive in certainty but dances in hope. Certainty may give us a sense of safety, but only hope has the power to carry us beyond it.
For what is life if not a dance with the unknown, a leap from one moment to the next, always knowing that nothing is certain, and yet with the deep, unspoken conviction that somehow it will continue? This newly defined self-awareness, this newly found sense of self-worth, should not merely be terms of chains. They must be tools that allow us to refocus on the essentials, on the primal need to simply be — in all our hope, in all our uncertainty.
There is no mock trial, no rehearsal, no return – it’s now, it’s you and me!
Perhaps it is not about defining ourselves but about losing ourself — in the other, in life, in the world, in you. Because, after all, it is not a puzzle it’s your life.
