BREAKING THROUGH

Sometimes I don’t know

how to reach the world

with what I believe matters.

Who doesn’t want to be seen?

Heard?

To make a difference?

It’s never been easier.

And never been harder.

Everything is possible,

they say.

And yet

everything is crowded.

I want to matter.

But I don’t know how.

It feels like others

have found the key.

The trick.

The rhythm.

I envy them.

Then I grow tired of them.

Especially when the same figures

fill four out of five headlines.

When noise becomes presence

and repetition becomes importance.

We speak through platforms now.

Mostly those.

They work.

I know they do.

And still,

I struggle to imagine

another way of speaking.

Another way of starting conversations.

Better ones.

Conversations less exposed

to manipulation,

to money,

to hidden interests.

I feel like I have something important to say.

But it disappears

among things

that feel loud

and empty.

And sometimes I wonder

if there’s a reason

I remain unseen.

Maybe it’s marketing.

I know that field well.

Just not how to use it

for myself.

I’ve come to realize

that success doesn’t stand still.

It belongs to a time.

And time changes faster

than we can adapt.

What mattered yesterday

feels irrelevant today.

What was knowledge

is now a footnote.

What felt true

has become optional.

You can complain.

You can resist.

You can stand your ground

and call it integrity.

The world moves on anyway.

Everything is temporary.

I don’t like that.

It unsettles me.

And deep down I know

it includes me too.

Just when I felt competent,

I became a beginner again.

Success no longer demands certainty,

but motion.

Not answers,

but openness.

So if there is a formula,

it isn’t built on control,

but curiosity.

Curiosity about the world.

About people.

About what I don’t yet understand.

Maybe that’s what success is now:

to keep learning

while everything keeps changing.

/ Simon Philip

I’ve always liked my intuition.

It’s not always right.

But it’s a good friend.

It doesn’t explain itself.

It just shows up

as a feeling.

A quiet yes.

A tightening no.

It lives somewhere

before language.

Before arguments.

Before logic starts clearing its throat.

Then it hits the brain.

And that’s where it often gets rejected.

Because the brain wants reasons.

Proof.

Something presentable.

“You can’t know that.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

Suddenly it takes confidence

to say:

This feels right.

Or worse:

This feels wrong.

Animals don’t hesitate.

They don’t calculate.

They survive on intuition

because the world is too complex

to solve first.

Maybe listening to your gut

isn’t naive at all.

Maybe it’s brave.

Because nothing hurts more

than knowing something deeply

and choosing against it anyway.

/ Simon Philip

I wish we remembered school

as a place

where we grew.

Not just in knowledge,

but in each other.

A place

where being different

didn’t need an explanation,

because it already belonged.

Where we learned

how to speak with one another

before learning how to be right.

How to listen

before learning how to raise a hand.

Where the most important curriculum

was ourselves.

I wasn’t happy at school.

That’s a longer story.

Some days

I just wanted to get away.

Far away.

It wasn’t a system

built for me.

And maybe

that was the point.

Maybe school

was never meant

to help us become ourselves,

but to help us become alike.

Comparable.

Measurable.

Gradable.

Same scale.

Same average.

Same answer.

But I still believe

the best thing we can do

for one another

is to activate

the potential already there.

Because we need everyone.

Not as replicas.

But as people.

And difference

is not a problem to solve.

It’s a resource

we forgot to include.

/ Simon Philip

I’m not here to argue

about what AI is.

I’m here to explore

what it makes possible.

I don’t need certainty.

I need imagination.

I don’t fear the machine.

I fear small thinking.

The future won’t be decided

by those who hesitate longest,

but by those who begin.

So I stop debating.

And start building.

Not alone.

But together

with what is here.

/ Simon Philip

I never asked

to be called a consumer.

It sounds like something

to be measured,

regulated,

adjusted in a spreadsheet.

Something meant

to do its job quietly.

We talk about consumer confidence,

consumer protection,

consumption as growth.

As if the world stops

when we stop buying.

GDP rises.

The planet shrinks.

We know this.

Consumption is extraction.

Consumption is waste.

Consumption is everything

we claim we must reduce.

And still.

Who doesn’t want enough money

for a little ease?

A quieter car.

Food that tastes like surplus.

A holiday where thoughts

are allowed to rest.

I want to be called human.

Or citizen.

Something that implies responsibility.

But I also want enough.

Maybe a bit more than enough.

I know

most of what I buy

won’t make me happy.

I buy it anyway.

It feels briefly right.

As if something clicks into place.

I also know

it isn’t good for the planet.

But in the grand scheme,

my small purchase

feels infinitely small.

I don’t have much buying power.

But if I did,

I’d probably use it.

So no,

I’m not different.

Maybe the point isn’t

that we’re wrong.

Maybe the point is

that we look for safety

and happiness

in something

we already know

can’t hold us.

/ Simon Philip

I’ve learned

that I shouldn’t need it.

That freedom means

not depending on other people’s eyes.

That strength is

standing alone in what I do.

My mind has repeated this

so many times

it sounds like truth.

If I don’t need recognition,

no one can trap me.

No one can control me.

No one can disappoint me.

And yes —

I understand the logic.

But I don’t live in my head.

I live among people.

And the truth is,

I feel too much.

Think too much

about what others see,

hear,

understand.

I’m affected

by looks.

By silence.

By applause

that never comes.

And at the same time —

something else.

A tiredness

from constantly

having to rise above it.

As if wanting recognition

were a flaw

to be corrected.

Then I had another thought.

What if it’s allowed?

What if the desire

isn’t weakness,

but relation?

Because something happens

between people.

When I make something

that matters to someone else.

When someone says:

That touched me.

That made me glad.

That meant something.

And I respond,

without shame:

Thank you.

That matters to me.

Something moves.

Not manipulation.

Not dependency.

But momentum.

I do something

that brings joy to others.

They tell me.

I feel motivated to continue.

A healthy spiral.

Not a dangerous one.

Maybe freedom

isn’t indifference.

Maybe freedom

is being able to receive recognition

without losing yourself to it.

Let it arrive.

Let it pass.

Right now,

it feels like relief

to give myself permission.

Not to chase recognition —

but to stop running from it.