Have you seen those expensive robot vacuums—the ones gliding relentlessly across the floor, so methodical in their journey? What happens when they bump into a wall? They spin, recalibrate, and despite every crash, don’t they always find their way? Can you imagine if someone had to stand there, barking instructions and codes on how to realign? Would that even make sense?

Now, could that be how my brain works? Or is it how everyone’s brain works—constantly bouncing off invisible walls, readjusting and moving forward. But here’s the difference: my body follows my brain. Yours, it seems, does not. You stand on the outside, watching and commenting, do you really believe that gives you some sort of superpower, some advantage to understand my mind?

And isn’t it strange? Nowhere is it written that something opaque is inherently stronger than something transparent, right? So why does a wooden block feel sturdier than a sheet of clear plastic to you? Do you assume that solidity equates to strength? That transparency implies fragility? Just because you can see through something, does that mean you understand its depth, its resilience? And do you think that entitles you to intervene just because it’s clear to you?

You tell me I’m getting anxious, but you don't need to remind me every time. My anxiety is just another wall, and I crash into it, yes—but like that vacuum, I recalibrate, I move on. My Anxiety is just reflection of my neuronal chemistry. Why would you assume it's the map dictating my direction?

Yes, there are walls. But don’t I already acknowledge them? And even so, won’t I keep finding my way regardless, like gas particles in a jar, scattering and colliding, yet never stopping? Do you believe the particles need guidance? Or don’t they always find their own paths?

So why wouldn’t I?

It's been a decade since I last saw an oil lamp. We used to have a few in our old place. If you’ve ever owned one, you’ll know not all of them are the same. The ones that burn less but shine more are always the favorites.

The ones that burn more produce a lot of soot. Nobody likes the soot. It’s not thrown away; it’s just used for the abandoned corners of the house.

Those lonely corners haunt, so it burns more, and more. It shines brighter than any other lamp, and by the time its light reaches you, the wick is burned out. You clean the soot and replace it.

I was preparing for my exams. I'm the kind of person who believes in pasting different types of post-its on my wall—colorful, with underlined text. I also highlight some of them, creating a very colorful display on the wall, showing the different shades of all my pens and sketch pens. One day, I was writing something down. I had already put some post-its on the wall, but then I realized something: my pen, which I'd been using for a week, had written all the material on the wall. Every single note was written with that one black pen. The rest of the wall was empty. The whole wall was covered with different colors of post-its, highlighted with various highlighters, but everything was still written in a single black pen.

I started to feel irritated. I wanted to note down an important table, something I needed to see often so I could memorize it. But then, the pen ran out of ink. I had no black pen left. I found a pencil, but I couldn’t bring myself to use it. It felt like using a pencil would ruin the harmony, as if my wall were a masterpiece—my own version of a Picasso—and the pencil would somehow destroy it.

I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t bring myself to write with a pencil. I often use pencils. Sometimes, when you don’t want to press too hard while writing, pencils are the best. If you're just scribbling ideas or jotting things down, pencils are perfect. But in that moment, I couldn’t use it. Why did it matter so much if I used a pencil? After all, it’s still black ink—okay, a lighter shade of black, more like grey. It’s more than grey, but less than black. It’s a pencil. It can still write the same things. My handwriting wouldn’t change, and the material wouldn’t change either. The only difference would be that it’s a little less black.

But I still couldn’t bring myself to use the pencil. That’s when it hit me—why is it so difficult for us to accept people who are a little less black than us , just a little less.