Good crushes and love are data-collection systems for identity, because they help you understand your shape

The more specific we are, the more visible we become. This is the literal definition of attractive - you’re attracting. You’re sending out a signal strong enough for the right people to notice and move toward.

Projection thrives in the absence of detail, but connection does not. Sometimes, this desire isn’t even about the other person, but a defence mechanism. When someone is afraid of being seen as they truly are, they may seek out someone who can’t really look, or doesn’t require require truly seen themselves.

You date someone and notice how they treat strangers with curiosity, or how they read poetry out loud, or how they respond to uncertainty with steadiness instead of fear. Through witnessing someone up close, you realise: I value that. I want to be like that.

I firmly believe that we we seek is seeking us and the fastest way to attract what’s meant for us all is to express yourself so honestly that everything misaligned falls away on its own. The more clearly someone speaks clearly from their centre, the more easily the right people, places, and possibilities can recognise their signal.

To speak clearly is to reveal a shape, not a final form, but a felt one. This isn’t about locking into a fixed identity forever, but offering an image sharp enough that others can respond to it.

Mirror it, play with it, meet it. Let it evolve. Like a photograph in the darkroom, gradually revealing deeper colour, clearer edges, something someone can ... See more

“She had a poignantly vacant, vulnerable quality that made her a reflection of everybody’s private fantasies. Taxi could be anything you wanted her to be - a little girl, a woman, intelligent, dumb, rich, poor, anything. She was a wonderful, beautiful blank. The mystique to end all mystiques.”

In low-light conditions, cameras struggle. You either get blur , a soft, smeared image, or noise , a grainy, peppered mess. Neither is actually a true picture of what’s there, but they’re different distortions. Blur smooths over detail, while noise exaggerates uncertainty.

Sometimes, to remove noise, the software adds blur. To remove blur, it sharpe... See more

Blurriness is a soft-edged kind of confusion, which emerges when we haven’t yet found the language to name who we are. This relates to relationships, because when you can’t name yourself, it’s almost impossible for anyone else to meet you properly.

If someone can’t see us, it’s usually one of two things: sometimes, they don’t yet have the eyes to se... See more