for certain people

Love asks for heat. Left cold, we harden into our existing shape. But under the steady warmth of attention, we soften, loosen, and take on new form. The right gaze reorganises the self; you begin to recognise yourself more clearly in their eyes, and they in yours. Each becomes more singular by being seen, a longing to inhabit the silhouette cast by... See more

our sense of self is a collaborative fiction, drafted in the space between your gaze and my interpretation of it, and love has a way of making that fiction more generous, more daring, more alive. Each act of seeing draws up another hidden self from the depths

Like metal cooling in a new shape, your expression, posture, even the cadence of your speech start to carry the imprint of the one who sees you.

This is why the right gaze, the right conversation, can change you down to the grain. Emotional heat loosens the architecture of the self, and in the presence of someone who sees you vividly, the molten structure reforms around their image of you. What remains afterwards is stronger, different, marked by the shape of their attention. Attention... See more

the quiet work of intimacy: to hold someone so they can grow into the silhouette your love sketches for them, and to feel your own edges soften and bend beneath the steady pressure of their gaze.

Who we choose to orbit defines, over time, the texture and colour palette of our becoming. Love becomes a technology of transformation, a living interface between selves. To love well is to take part in someone else’s unfolding, even as they take part in yours.

love’s power as an act of invention, the way certain people draw out a version of you that didn’t exist before they arrived. They witness you, and thus, rearrange you. In their presence, words you didn’t know you knew tumble out. Your thoughts sharpen, colours seem richer, you inhabit yourself more fully.

We all carry endless hidden selves and... See more

The essay suggests that in high-energy emotional states, such as falling in love, grief, awe, psychedelics, deep meditation, the brain becomes molten, its patterns loosened, more open to reorganisation. The person we focus on in these states becomes like a mold for the cooling metal, shaping how our thoughts settle, what habits crystallise, what... See more