Writing Makes You Think: Embodying over appearing by Isabel
Writing Makes You Think
Welcome to Writing Makes You Think! This is where I take one essay a week and distill it down the it’s core concern.
i’ve been waiting pretty much all week to read this essay by Isabel. she’s easily one of my fav writers and i think you’ll see why. here’s an excerpt from her most recent work:
there’s a lot I want to comment on that I currently do not have the energy to do. In short, this essay is about being and not just looking. more often than not, i find a common problem amongst groups of people from any given big city. that is the problem of perception. how will this or that person think of me? will so and so be at dinner tonight? it’s a bad look if such and such come to this
much of being in your 20’s is trying to find which tapestry you can thread yourself into. i think if you manage to find a shred of self-awareness, you begin to realize that the only tapestry worth threading yourself into is one that you make for yourself — not something someone else has made and you wanting to play a part in it.
too often someone carves a part of themselves out to “fit in.” it reminds me of a character from the movie “Lobster” where a man consistently breaks his own nose just to get with a girl who gets nosebleeds all the time.
maintaining an image, keeping an aesthetic, is all are work when that image isn’t you. there is something to be said about the importance of perception and its role in matters of powers and politics. but in matters of living one’s life happily, to the fullest, it’s important to embrace becoming over appearing. they both take effort, it’s as much if not more difficult to be disciplined than it is it to look disciplined. the difference is that when you are being disciplined, certain things become second-nature such that you never have to give it a second-thought. when you have to appear disciplined, how you look, especially to others, is always top of mind. couldn’t be me lmao.
bon apple tea.
best,
haroon