The shape of water
There is a profound relief in finally surrendering to your own shape, in letting your edges be edges
Have you ever watched water find its way?
Not in the grand manner of rivers carving valleys, but in the quiet moments - a droplet navigating the curve of a wine glass, seeking its lowest point with unwavering certainty.
Water knows exactly what it is. It doesn't pretend to be wine or whiskey. It doesn't apologise for its clarity or try to become more opaque to please the mud.
We spend our years as chameleons, some of us shifting through personas like trying on clothes at a discount store. Some become weekend warriors in CrossFit gyms when our friends take up fitness, while others develop passionate opinions about natural wine because our new social circle demands it. In university, some of us join protest marches not from conviction but from a desire to belong, holding signs about causes we barely understand, while secretly preferring to observe the drama from cafe windows. There are those among us who learn to perfect the corporate costume - practising power stances in bathroom mirrors, forcing ourselves to use phrases like "circle back" and "touch base," setting alarms for 5 AM because that's what successful people supposedly do. Each transformation is exhausting, like deep-sea divers who've stayed too long at depths where they didn't belong.
Yet beneath these borrowed skins, simmer our authentic oddities.
We are the midnight bakers who perfect sourdough recipes while deadlines loom, the accountants who secretly write haiku about tax codes, the bus drivers who know every bird call on their route. Those of us who spend years tracking the shifting patterns of street art in our cities, noting how the murals evolve like slow-motion conversations, while others who can identify the model of a train by the rhythm of its wheels but struggle to remember birthdays in their family.
Our authenticity reveals itself in the quiet moments: the lawyer who photographs puddles after rain, catching upside-down worlds in water; the surgeon who breeds rare orchids, understanding that healing comes in many forms; the teacher who collects stories of children's made-up words : a dictionary of imagination. Some of us read books on library shelves through our fingertips while others fill notebooks with drawings of the spaces between buildings, because these gaps are all we have between space and time.
These aren't mere eccentricities - they're the threads that weave the story of human experience. Each peculiarity adds a new texture to how the collective works. The world becomes richer because someone notices how spiderwebs catch morning dew. We find our melody on how pigeons dance differently depending on the music floating from open windows.
Our authentic selves are like water finding its own level - not flowing where we're told to go, but where our nature leads us. In these genuine moments, when we stop pretending to be smaller or simpler than we are, we create a world that's more intricate, more surprising, and infinitely more beautiful than any standardised version could ever be.
The truth is, we were not meant to be universal adapters, those convenient devices that can plug into any socket. We are specific, peculiar creatures, shaped by invisible currents of desire and reluctance.
This morning, I watched my neighbour carefully arrange her garden gnomes in perfect symmetry. Tomorrow, I know I'll find them scattered in new positions, victims of her constant quest for the perfect arrangement. We are all searching for the right way to be, but the secret lies not in the arrangement but in the acceptance of our own gravity.
Like water, we can flow and adapt, but we cannot fundamentally change our nature. And why should we? There is a profound relief in finally surrendering to your own shape, in letting your edges be edges, in allowing your depths to remain mysterious even to yourself.
Water doesn't question why it seeks the lowest point - it simply flows, confident in its own nature, neither proud nor ashamed of being exactly what it is.
Recommended reading
- The Power of Authenticity - CarrieBakerWriter
- Twelve examples of authenticity: What being authentic looks like - Wisdom Stirring
- Living Authentically: The Journey Towards Self-Realization - Pranesh Padmanabhan
- How do I Know if I'm Being Authentic? - Helen Barry
About Me:
I write 'cos words are fun. More about me here. Follow @hackrlife on X
