共鳴 (resonance)

Much of the joy I reflected on during the last days was about immersion and unity – to immerse oneself in a crowd (while listening to music, dancing), a group of friends (celebrating in the streets), or to become one with a book or gobble up delicious food.

But there is a different way to experience joy in the crowd, not by becoming one with them, but by staying unique, by fully embracing one’s life and essential difference. There is a hierarchical version of in this – think celebrities and stages – but there is also a more tender, vibrant, organic variant. Moments of not staying out but diving in yet not getting washed away by the momentum or madness of the masses but rather to survive as the single bubble of consciousness everyone of us is. I love the word “resonance” to describe this invisible ribbon created in these moments, and it’s a good metaphor as resonance in physics too requires two objects that are connected but still separate.

It’s a promise often made by the fashion and beauty industry and not without reason. We have to feel good “in our skin” and it’s rather likely that’s not all we wear. But in the end it has nothing to do with what we own or wear and all with how we relate to ourselves.