We all carry endless hidden selves and latent worlds, waiting for the right gaze to bring them to the surface. I’ve felt this in my bones: relationships that have remade me, expanded me, taught me. Time and again, people have been the most transformative engine for becoming I’ve ever known.

On the Sydney train, I sometimes like to play a quiet game with myself, where I imagine each commuter through the eyes of someone who adores them. The oil-stained man becomes a gentle, loving father. The teenage girl biting her sleeve becomes someone’s irreplaceable best friend. The elderly woman with the fierce stare becomes a widow whose late hus... See more

A recent Banksy piece, I want to be what you saw in me , completes the thought. Between Karlsson’s shaping and the reality of our becoming lies 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.