LIVING BREATHING ESSAY I'M COMPOSING IN SPURTS

Aesthetic. It’s a buzz word of today’s strange visibility issue. We curate aesthetic by grouping objects together, throwing ourselves into the context, and posting on social media. A double-edged sword if I ever saw one. We’re making it easy for people to “see” us, to self-select into and out of interacting. We’re curating. But, we also make it more difficult to “see” ourselves. Are we looking through ourselves to the lens or are we looking through the lens to ourselves?

Self-care. Another buzz word. Sure, self-care is buying stuff sometimes, eating, taking baths, going for a run blah blah blah. But, the meat of self-care, the part a lot of people miss—especially people with means—is intentionality. It’s setting aside time for yourself, exploring pleasure without guilt, and truly engaging your spirit. The lens and the mirror are sometimes the same thing. Looking out and looking through is not looking inward. All our myths of mirrors come with jagged edges. Vulcan loses Venus, men turn to stone, Kingdoms are upended, but the future is clearer, and the ability to protect yourself more real.

When we are intentional in our actions—the difference between eating cake out of desperation and eating cake because you’ve decided you deserve it—we are making time, instead of existing in time. So too are we making it easy to see, slow down, and enjoy presence.