The Feminine Urge to Be Present
‘While people are fairly young and the musical composition of their lives is still in its opening bars, they can go about writing it together and exchange motifs’ - Milan Kundera.
Past
A version of myself endeavoured to outline the key motifs of her character in so many ways. Endless online personality tests, unnerving loyalty to statement pieces or accessories, declarations of new hobbies, interests, or career paths she was adamant would claim her future. Implementing what she had been taught of self-discovery and identity, she glued together a collage of mannerisms, clothing items and beliefs that she felt were acceptable and safe. The leading principle being that this end result, this ‘perfect self’ she was always one step behind, would protect her from cruelty, from rejection, and from loneliness.
With the experience of all three sitting in her rear-view mirror she was not keen on doing a U-turn and she felt mighty clever for having found the solution, if she could transform and replace enough motifs in her present then she could outrun her past. If she could draw solid lines around her identity then nothing from the past could break through. If she may say so herself she became quite exceptional at playing her character, she enjoyed her tranquility and resilience on the outside. But she hated the spiral of anxiety waiting for her if she let it take hold, and how her hands shook if motifs of the past infiltrated the character’s behaviour, or external environment. She was so occupied with the script, the costumes, the seamless performance that she sailed through three years of her life existing almost entirely in her thoughts rather than the world around her.
Now, my rear-view mirror is foggy, the memories of those three years are blurred and lacking any chronological order, they appear only in smeared lines if I really rub my fingers on the glass. How I started my process of reparations was with the belief that a healed version of myself was a finished artistic piece, a collage of my central motifs that would hang on the wall where I could keep my eyes trained safely on all its lines and colours for the rest of my life so that I would never ever be harmed again.
I found it difficult to part ways with my beloved character with her distinct and unchanging motifs. But one of several issues with her approach to existence was that fixed motifs require you to stay within the four walled boundary of the collage, it does not provide space for imperfection, mistakes, or expansion.
Now I see motifs in a different light. Milan Kundera’s interpretation in ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being’ of the philosopher, Heraclitus’ phrase ‘You cannot step twice in the same river’ is perhaps my favourite - meaning the physical anchor of the motif (an object, a song, a word, or a specific location) is merely a dry riverbed. But each time that motif resurfaces in your life, the ‘water’ flowing through ‘the river’ is a completely new emotional reality. Over years we accumulate motifs, the old meanings do not vanish, rather they linger in the background while new meanings accumulate and make the motif richer and more meaningful. They are a constant exploration, with our lives constantly in motion, they flow and come and go just as people and places do.
Entering the post-grad world now I can see where my idea of making a fixed collage of all my most attractive qualities came from. A term that is gaining more and more prevalence is that of the ‘personal brand’. In a digital age, social media platforms offer those of us figuring out our motifs an endless menu of expressions of self and ways of ‘branding’ ourselves, all worthy of varying amounts of social and economic capital. I read an article recently from the Harvard Business Review which cited a Senior Lecturer of Personal Branding at Harvard, Jill Avery. She asked: ’How do we apply everything we know about branding products and services to branding our most important product, which is ourselves?’
The idea of a ‘personal brand’ is glossy and sexy even, all our bad habits and impatient moments cut out of the final product. With an increasingly competitive job market, the ability to self-advertise, to sell your personal brand seems imperative. According to a study conducted by Reineck and Trepte, Generation Z increasingly values authenticity and yet engage more frequently than other generations in self-censorship and self-polishing behaviours. So, I wonder where that impulse to curate the perfect marketable image stops and we begin? To what extent are we living our lives dictated by invisible parameters of what is acceptable and even ‘marketable’, and what is not?
When I believed in my perfect collage, I thought I would have a fixed set of characteristics by the time I became an ‘adult’, I would fit all my jeans month in and out, I would have consistent energy to keep up with long-distance friends even when life got busy, and I would have an unmatched discipline about maintaining the flexibility I had at 16. And I chastised myself time and time again when I did not live up to the preconception I had created.
But what if you were to live your exact life over and over for eternity? Yet another philosophy Milan Kundera touches on is that of Nietzsche’s theory of eternal return. He argues there is a moral perversity to our world that rests essentially on the non-existence of return, for in this world we cynically permit so much on the basis that the event will never happen again, that surely we will improve, become a better and improved version of ourselves, or that others will do the same? I ask again, what if I were to live my exact life over and over for eternity? Would I really spend my time trying to bridge the gap between my reality and the imagined version of a ‘perfect self’?
Presence
The start of the end of those blurry three years spent inside my heard came when a dear friend explained presence to me. I was dumbfounded, how had this not consciously crossed my mind before? That there were times when I was out in the world, with the people around me, with myself, looking around and experiencing everything outside of my head. And others where I withdrew into myself, where the world outside felt insignificant compared to the goings on of my mind.
My friend asked me whether I considered myself present, she sat with me while I realised just how much of my time had been dedicated to loops of thoughts or anxiety about the past and future. I am very grateful to her for having brought me into the present in that moment. Following our conversation, I practised and practised presence for months, it was easier around certain people, more difficult around others, and most challenging in time with myself. Two years on and many conversations later, that same friend equated it to a form of constant meditation. I am nervous to even attempt to encompass what presence means to me in a few sentences but I will try.
Being present for all of it, the boring, the painful, the nerve-wracking has led me to creating and experiencing the motifs of my life now in all the richest ways.
‘I will never become complacent’ was something said to me by one of the most present and impactful people I know in March of this year, and it has become a motif in my life as a result. In May, I was recommended an article by Professor Clayton Christensen, I saw those words exemplified in the starkest way and I like it rather a lot:
‘In theory, surely I could have crossed over the line just that one time and then not done it again. But looking back on it, resisting the temptation whose logic was “In this extenuating circumstance, just this once, it’s OK” has proven to be one of the most important decisions of my life. Why? My life has been one unending stream of extenuating circumstances. Had I crossed the line that one time, I would have done it over and over in the years that followed. The lesson I learned from this is that it’s easier to hold to your principles 100% of the time than it is to hold to them 98% of the time. If you give in to “just this once,” based on a marginal cost analysis, as some of my former classmates have done, you’ll regret where you end up. You’ve got to define for yourself what you stand for and draw the line in a safe place.’
Future
Complacency demands a certain lack of care. To take yourself and others in the present moment and at face value allows you to handle the constant stream of decisions, extenuating circumstances and mistakes that make up life with the truest care for your principles and boundaries and those of the people around you. The motifs in your life will shape to your loyalty to your needs and your values.
When you face reality square on you become far more capable of forming true relationships, those around you can be vulnerable with you because you will not deny their reality just because you have a different one. Truly meeting with reality demands your attention, that is why it can feel difficult, tiring, or complex, as well as nourishing, joyful, and romantic. Being present is the very real experience of one’s own life.
Reading I wrote about:
Kundera, Milan. 1999. The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Translated by Michael Henry Heim. London, England: Faber & Faber.
Catherine Cote. 2026. Personal Branding: What It Is & Why It Matters. Harvard Business Review.
Soyombo-Erdene Ariunbold. 2026. Being Authentic on Social Media with Generation Z. Lindenwood University.
Clayton M. Christensen. 2010. How Will You Measure Your Life? Harvard Business Review.