To Stand With Others

There was always a door. Not wide, not narrow — simply there, as doors tend to be. People filed through it in decent clothes and decent thoughts, offering each other smiles approved by custom and time. I watched from a few paces off, not out of defiance, but because something in me paused.

They said I could enter, if I wished. It would only cost a nod, a small silence, a looking away. Nothing dramatic. Just enough to fit in. Just enough to be invited to the right tables and clapped on the back by the right hands.

But there were others — figures without names, without ease, the sort who carry their whole lives in their eyes. They were not welcome. Not at that table. Not beyond that door. And I, for reasons I could never quite translate into speech, could not leave them behind.

So I stayed outside.

Not with banners, not with noise — only with presence.

They say one must choose: to be included by excluding, or excluded by including. I made my peace with the latter. It is quieter here, yes. Colder, sometimes. But the silence is honest. And in that honesty, I feel closer to something that might one day be called truth.

If grace exists — and I believe it does — it passes more often through broken hands than polished ones. And so I walk, not alone, but with those for whom no seat was set.

Comments

The Fallacy of Self‑Sufficiency

Some people will tell you — quite loudly, usually — that they are enough. They need no one, thank you very much. Entirely self‑made. A closed circuit. I, too, fancied myself an island at one time. A small, sturdy principality of one. I paid my own bills. Made my own tea. I even spoke aloud to myself in the supermarket queue, which was meant to prove something. But late at night, when all the heroic independence had been done for the day, there it was — a sort of homesickness without a forwarding address. You know the feeling. You’re supposedly sovereign, but you still wish someone would knock. Self‑sufficiency is a word that weighs a bit too much. It sounds like an insurance policy or a piece of camping equipment. It promises freedom, but only the kind you can fit in a box. Like eating an entire birthday cake alone — which, I confess, I’ve done. Because the truth (and it arrives, as truths tend to, when you’ve just burned your toast) is that we are made of others. We are es...

The Progressive Misreading of Silence

At 5, I entered rooms like a murmur. I was already listening for something behind the noise — something older than voices, softer than footsteps. “He’s such a well-behaved boy,” they said, smiling with relief. But what they mistook for virtue was only quiet intuition. I was not good. I was attuned. At 11, I had mastered the art of presence without weight. I could sit by the window for hours, watching the wind pass through the trees like thought through the body. “He’s quiet,” they would say — gently, but with a trace of discomfort. They couldn’t name the feeling of someone watching without need. At 17, I was called “mature.” But maturity is not a virtue — it is a scar. I had already seen the shape of endings before others saw beginnings. Friends came to me like tide to stone, hoping to be held. I held them, yes — but not always with words. Sometimes silence is the only honest offering. At 24, my stillness no longer charmed. The world asked for brightness, momentum, performa...

Research shows that parental warmth shapes our worldview — how might acupuncture offer a reparative experience in adulthood?

It is becoming increasingly clear that our worldview — whether we perceive life as welcoming or hostile — is shaped far more by the emotional bonds of early childhood than by material hardship or environmental risk. A recent study, published in Child Development , revealed that an adult’s sense of safety, beauty, and benevolence in the world is deeply rooted in the warmth received from parental figures — more so than in their exposure to poverty or danger. This finding resonated with me on a personal level. Time and again, I encounter patients in clinical practice who, despite being outwardly successful and high-functioning, carry an abiding sense that the world is cold, fragmented, even threatening. In acupuncture sessions, it is not uncommon to witness how such emotional imprints — stored not only in the mind, but also in the body — manifest as chronic anxiety, diffuse pain, insomnia, or emotional detachment. Through the lens of Chinese medicine, these states reflect imbalances...

The Hyggelig Journey

Search This Blog