colors of truth
23 | Hue's Cues: your weekly dose of inspiration and insights for your brain, mind, body, and soul.
Two people can speak the same exact language, but completely misunderstand what the other is saying.
Two people can share a smile, but the intent behind each mean entirely different things. One as a friendly hello; for the second, a timid attempt at flirtation.
Two people can laugh at a friend who spews milk through their nose, one laughing with genuine endearment, while the other laughing in secret disgust.
Nearly identical reactions; in appearance either of the these two reactions may seem the same, but the intent and therefore the meaning behind each can be wildly different.
This is what we don’t talk about enough: that no two people experience reality in the same way. That even if two people share the same exact moment, the interpretation by each is entirely colored by their own histories, contexts, and biases.
Because no matter how hard we try to make the case of objective truths on how we experience the world, the truth is: our internal world is filled with colors of wildly unique shades.
What each person’s consciousness contains, the myriad of hues, is entirely subjective. Never to be shared, neither ever experienced by anyone other than the person experiencing it. That’s both the beauty and the curse of being human.
If reality is simply a motion of colors, of moment-by-moment interpretations of what’s happening in real-time, constructed spontaneously, in reaction to the various stimulus the brain, mind, body, and soul notices (and only those it notices; because let’s not even speak of everything else that goes unnoticed or moves through the subconscious), then reality is truly a rainbow that’s in the eye of the beholder.
Even our best guesses of the colors you and I experience, is simply that, a guess. All our efforts to try to see the universe through the same palette falls short to resemble the diversity and richness of a life experienced in the subjective.
That everything we experience is simply about the colors we see with and the colors we experience within.
I write about the small things that compound into a life well-lived: brain, mind, body, and soul. Free to join. If it’s speaking to you, becoming a patron is the best way to keep what’s being built here going.
Train the brain for flexibility. When the temptation to crumble feels more real than the reason not to, what can you do to save yourself from falling further? We all hit these moments; especially when you’re trying to build something from nothing. But here’s the most interesting thing about our brains: it’s malleable. I say it often, neuroplasticity is our superpower. We can rewire our brains into what we will it to. Easier said than done, of course, but not impossible. Science backs this up. Doubt, trials, and tribulations are a part of life, so I’ve been training my brain on something specific: practicing self-compassion. The quiet work is to choose how you want your life to play out. That whatever comes, you trust yourself to carry you forward; to wallow and worry or will yourself into a win. That’s the opportunity. Flexibility in building kindness towards yourself when life gets tough, because that’s part of the work too.
Nourish the mind with intentional integration. For the first time in a while, I sat still, immersed in a wall of green. Leaves swaying against the wind, noticing the shades of green in synchrony with one another: nowhere to be, nothing to do other than to simply sit still with nature. Entertaining a moment that’s always with me, waiting, in front of me the whole time. I don’t do it often enough. Learning gives you a dopamine hit, and it’s tempting to keep chasing the next new idea. Learning is good, isn’t it? So we keep going. Keep consuming, keep moving forward, conditioned to believe more is the point. But more for the sake of more, with nothing to root it, misses the point entirely. We move through the day on autopilot, working down a never-ending scroll of to-dos; but real life was never meant to be lived on a scroll. It happens in the present, irl. Not the past, not the future, but in whatever is right in front of you right now. Integration is simply this: leaving space for everything you’ve engaged with to settle in, to marinate, and become yours. The moment doesn’t need to be earned, neither created. It’s already here, a wall of green, simply waiting.
Stimulate the body through intuitive movement. With competition and never-ending seasons of performance, we tend to overload the performing side of movement. The wearables, the reps, the metrics. We’ve been engineered into a relentless culture of measuring ourselves against arbitrary numbers; onboarding onto an infinite hamster wheel of greater gains, almost entirely ignoring the intuitive reward of movement itself. The class schedules, the rest scores, the distance, the pace: all of it has overcomplicated the act of movement as essential stimulation. We don’t all have to do a deadlift, run marathons, or compete to earn the right to move. But we do have to move to survive, it’s as essential to us as breathing. I’m working on trying to return my own body to movement for the sake of movement this week. Listening for the kind of stimulation my body is actually craving, and giving it exactly that; for no other reason than to satisfy it’s cravings.
Allowing yourself to return to yourself, more honestly: that’s rest and recovery for the soul. We’ve been conditioned to know the “right” thing to do on any given situation. What’s acceptable in the eyes of society. What’s ‘normal.’ But in the rush to please everyone else, to satisfy the checklist for approvals, in search for belonging, we often lose the one person we can never afford to lose: our self. That kind of self-abandonment is more common that we’d like to admit. The most troubled souls are the ones who don’t even realize their lost. Those who feel the misalignment but who can’t yet name what. Because the modern world is built to celebrate achievement over alignment, accolades over the quiet register of the soul. There are eight billion of us in this world, which means there are eight billion was to a life that’s feels fully alive.
Meet @katerina.francesca (a.k.a my childhood best friend). She faced her fears and finally completed her very first mural. I am a proud friend. She was also kind enough to let me help paint too: shadows under some lemons and a few strokes of blues. Sharing, in a very small way, a friend’s light felt like a jolt of energy for my soul too. Friends, surround yourself with people you admire because time with those who inspire you is always a good idea!
“The life of a writer is absolute hell compared to the life of a businessman. The writer has to force himself to work. He has to make his own hours and if he doesn't go to his desk at all there is nobody to scold him...A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul, and that, I am sure, is why he does it.” — Roald Dahl