I actually enjoy rereading my own scribbles.

Not right after I write them but after some time has passed.  Every time I return, there’s always a slightly different understanding.  Sometimes I nod.  Sometimes I laugh.  Sometimes I think, “Wow… I really thought that back then?”

But this kind of embarrassment doesn’t bother me.  Because in the time I wasn’t looking back,  I read more books, encountered new perspectives,  and touched ideas I hadn’t yet reached before.

So when I reread those once-serious “life truths,”  they feel a little overconfident,  a little too eager to conclude.  Not wrong just very much me, at that time.

I used to feel the need to state what I believed were “insights.”  Now I smile at them gently.  Because I see how easily people (myself included) try to explain the whole world using a very limited version of understanding.

Most of what we perceive is only appearance.

Water boiling into steam:  a child says, “The water is smoking.”  A scientist says, “Liquid is transitioning into gas.”  And a mystic might show up to sell you enlightenment at a price.

The phenomenon itself isn’t the problem.  The problem is rushing to decode it before we’re ready.

These days, I prefer a quieter position:  not rushing to explain,  not insisting on understanding,  not needing to prove that I know.

Some things, simply being seen and felt is enough.

Not over-decoding appearances might actually be the most honest way to understand the world. And those earlier, slightly foolish versions of me, they weren’t wasted.

They just walked the road so the current me didn’t have to start from zero.



—— XC Scribbles · 玖拾伍 XCV 🪞