It was a perfect morning to stroll around the neighborhood like I used to. Wind blows softly, the sun is perfectly bright, but not too bright, that it burns. It’s just shining perfectly. Of course, it makes me feel energetic and ready to conquer what life brings me to the table! Sorry, I’ve been too excited. Okay, back to my morning strolling…and then…I walked past a house. It’s been under renovation for months. Right now, it’s in that hideous stage. Blue tarps flapping in the wind, stacks of raw bricks, and a layer of dust that seems to settle on everything. Out of nowhere (I guess because I put too much attention to that house), a neighbor suddenly stopped and sighed, ‘I wonder when they’ll finally finish that eyesore.’
I couldn’t help but wonder about that sigh. It’s a feeling we all know, that restless itch for things to be ‘done’ and ‘pretty’ again. Then, it struck me: we have so much grace for the ‘Before’ and so much applause for the ‘After,’ but we have zero patience for the ‘During.’ To the world, a work in progress is just a mess. Was it?
In the world of art, we often see these ‘Dark Eras’ where the creator must disappear to truly become. Think of Banksy, who mastered the art of being invisible so that the message could speak louder than the man. He understands that to maintain your edge, you must resist the public’s urge to define you, even if it means staying in the shadows while the world guesses your next move.
Or consider Vincent van Gogh, who spent years in the ‘messy middle’ of his own development. Before the vibrant sunflowers, there were the dark, heavy tones of his early Dutch period. He had to endure the grief of being misunderstood not just by the art world but by the person he used to be, as he struggled to find the light that would eventually define him.
They both understood that to become something new, you must be willing to look ‘broken’ or ‘inconsistent’ to the public for a while. You have to endure the silence of the middle, where the old observers are confused, and the new ones haven’t yet arrived.
In the world of art, we often see these ‘Dark Eras’ where the creator must recede to truly become. Think of Banksy… or Van Gogh… They both understood that to become something new, we must be willing to look ‘broken’ to the public for a while.
But unlike them, we live in a culture that fears the tide going out. We are pressured to stay ‘on the shore’ at all times: visible, constant, and finished. We’ve lost the grace of the submerged phase. When we start outgrowing our former self, people get uncomfortable because we are no longer predictable.
The hardest part of the messy middle isn’t the internal work; it’s the external gaze. We live in an ‘always-on’ culture that demands we stay constant. When we start outgrowing our former selves, people get uncomfortable. They liked the ‘old’ us because we were a predictable, finished product.
By choosing to stay in this messy stage, by being Visible Without Losing Yourself, we are essentially asking the world to look at our blue tarps. We are choosing the Courage to be Misunderstood over the comfort of being liked for someone we no longer are.
Greg McKeown, in Essentialism, talks about the ‘Disciplined Pursuit of Less.’ But he rarely mentions that when we remove what is not essential, people assume something is missing. They don’t realize something is finally being protected. When we cut out the non-essentials to find our new alignment, people think we’ve lost our spark. They see a vacuum, not a strategy.
This is where the Quiet Grief sets in. To grow, we must conduct a funeral for our former self. As Marcus Aurelius wrote in Meditations: ‘Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature’s delight.’ But nature’s delight is often human discomfort. We are mourning the version of us that was ‘easy to understand’ to make room for the one that is ‘Aligned.’
If we’re feeling ‘messy’ right now, if our life feels like a construction site and the neighbors are whispering, don’t rush to paint the walls just to quiet them down.
This is Explorative Growth. The dust is evidence of demolition, and demolition is the first step of design. Stay in the mess. Grieve the old skin. Trust that the Quiet, Aligned version of you is being built behind those blue tarps. We aren’t ‘losing’ ourselves; we are finally finding the courage to be ‘Real’.
Love,
Kirana
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