literature
Whether written centuries ago or just last year, literary couples show that love is timeless.
What Floats When No One Carries You
Some pain never shows itself. It doesn’t bleed. It doesn’t bruise the skin. It simply lives inside you, quietly—like something floating beneath the surface of water. Present, steady, unseen. I think I am something like that. Floating. Not because I’m light—but because sinking would mean stopping. The house was silent when I woke up that morning. Not peaceful silence. The kind that feels unfinished. My mother’s room door was closed. My father had already left for work. On the table sat a cup of tea, cold and untouched, probably left there from the night before. I had to go to school. That part of the day always felt heavier than it should have. My foot still hurt. The doctor had called it a “minor injury,” the kind that heals on its own. People love the word minor. It makes pain sound optional. Like something you can simply ignore if you try hard enough. But pain doesn’t work that way when you have to walk. “Just take the bus,” they said. Buses cost money. And money isn’t always something you have when you need it. So I walked. The air was sharp with cold. Each step sent a reminder up my leg that I wasn’t okay, even if I looked like I was. I tried not to limp. People notice weakness more than they notice pain. Cars passed. People passed. Faces buried in phones, conversations, laughter. No one asked if I was alright. And that’s the rule of the world, I think—you’re invisible until you fall. Halfway there, I stopped near a small frozen pond. The surface was quiet, almost glass-like. Beneath it, something moved slowly. A jellyfish drifted just below the ice, its soft colors muted by the water. It wasn’t swimming. It wasn’t sinking. It was simply… floating. I stood there longer than I meant to. Watching it felt strangely familiar. It moved because the water moved it. No direction of its own. No resistance. No struggle anyone could see. I thought, Maybe this is what surviving looks like when no one carries you. School was loud, but I felt distant from it. Sitting hurt. Standing hurt. Thinking hurt. My body and mind seemed to argue with each other all day. The teacher asked a question I knew the answer to. I didn’t raise my hand. Silence had become easier than speaking. When no one truly listens, words feel like wasted effort. During lunch, everyone gathered in groups. I sat near the window, staring out toward the pond again, the way light reflected off its surface. I remembered when I was younger—when my mother used to walk me to school, holding my hand tightly like she was afraid the world might take me away. Back then, the road felt shorter. Back then, pain didn’t follow me everywhere. Back then, I didn’t feel like I had to prove I deserved to exist. Time changes everything. Except the expectations. On the way home, snow began to fall. My foot had gone numb, but I kept walking. Stopping felt dangerous. Like if I paused too long, I might not start again. The sky was heavy and gray. Each breath came out like a small cloud. I thought about how strange it was that pain could feel so lonely even when you’re surrounded by people. When I reached home, the silence greeted me again. I dropped my bag and sat on the floor. That’s when the tears came—not suddenly, not dramatically. Just quietly. Like they had been waiting all day for permission. I didn’t try to stop them. People think strength is loud. They think it looks like confidence, or bravery, or winning. But sometimes strength is just continuing. Continuing to walk. Continuing to show up. Continuing to float. No one sees how heavy that can be. The next morning, my foot still hurt. But something inside me had shifted. I realized I wasn’t weak for struggling. I wasn’t broken because things were hard. I had been surviving without support, without rest, without being asked the simplest question: Are you okay? And I was still here. That mattered. Later that day, someone finally noticed. “You look tired,” they said. Not accusing. Just observant. For once, I didn’t smile automatically. “I am,” I said. The world didn’t collapse. They didn’t walk away. They just nodded—and listened. It wasn’t a solution. It didn’t fix my pain or my situation. But it reminded me of something important: Being seen doesn’t require being loud. It requires being honest—with the right people. I still smile sometimes. But now, I let it come naturally. I let it leave when it needs to. I don’t force strength anymore. I don’t pretend pain doesn’t exist just to make others comfortable. I’m learning that floating isn’t failure. Sometimes, floating is survival. And maybe that’s enough—for now.
By Inayat khan2 days ago in Humans
A Name Can Break You, A Name Can Heal You
No one tells you that your name can hurt. Not physically. Not loudly. It hurts in the quiet ways—when it is said with disappointment instead of love, when it is followed by sighs, when it becomes the reason people think they already know who you are. She learned this early. When she was a child, her name sounded warm. Her mother used to say it slowly, like it mattered. Like it carried hope. Her father said it proudly, as if the name itself was proof that something good had entered the world. Back then, her name meant possibility. But names change when the world touches them. At school, her name became a pause. Teachers hesitated before saying it. Classmates stretched it into jokes. Some shortened it. Some twisted it. Others used it only when something went wrong. “Of course it’s her.” “Why am I not surprised?” “She’s always like this.” They weren’t just talking about her actions anymore. They were talking about her identity. And slowly, painfully, she began to listen. By the time she was a teenager, her name no longer felt like a gift. It felt like a warning. When people said it, she braced herself. Something bad was always coming after it—criticism, blame, disappointment. She learned to flinch without moving. She learned to smile when it hurt. She learned that silence was safer than correcting anyone. And somewhere along the way, she stopped saying her own name at all. Adulthood didn’t make it better. It only made the names quieter and sharper. Too sensitive. Difficult. Overthinking again. Why can’t you be normal? These weren’t nicknames, but they stuck harder than any insult. They followed her into relationships, into jobs, into rooms where she already felt too small. People spoke about her more than to her. And every time they did, her real name faded a little more. The worst part wasn’t what others called her. It was what she started calling herself. Weak. Broken. A problem. She wore those words like they were facts. The moment everything cracked was painfully ordinary. She was sitting in a small office, hands folded too tightly in her lap. The walls were bare, the air too still. Across from her sat a woman with a calm voice and eyes that didn’t rush. The woman asked, gently, “What would you like me to call you?” The question should have been easy. It wasn’t. Her throat closed. Her mouth opened, then shut again. She didn’t know. Because for the first time, she realized she had spent years answering to names that weren’t hers. “I mean your name,” the woman added softly. “Or… whatever feels right.” Whatever feels right. The words echoed. Nothing felt right. That night, she stood alone in front of her mirror. The light was harsh, honest. She looked at her reflection—older now, tired in ways sleep couldn’t fix. She whispered her name. It sounded strange. Fragile. Like something borrowed. She tried again, louder. Memories rushed in. Every time her name had been shouted instead of spoken. Every time it came with anger. Every time it explained why she was “too much” or “not enough.” Her chest tightened. She realized something terrifying. Her name remembered everything. Healing didn’t come suddenly. It came awkwardly. Slowly. Uncomfortably. It came the first time she corrected someone instead of smiling. The first time she didn’t apologize for existing. The first time she wrote her name on paper and didn’t feel embarrassed by it. The woman in the office once said something that stayed with her: “Names don’t belong to the people who misuse them.” That sentence became a quiet rebellion. She began reclaiming herself in small ways. She stopped shortening her name to make others comfortable. She signed her full name at the bottom of emails. She practiced saying it out loud until her voice stopped shaking. Sometimes it still hurt. Healing isn’t neat. But slowly, her name started to sound different. Not heavy. Not sharp. Stronger. One afternoon, someone new asked her the same question. “What should I call you?” This time, she answered immediately. Her name came out clear. Steady. The person smiled and repeated it. And nothing bad followed. No judgment. No sigh. No disappointment. Just her name. She understood then what no one had taught her before. A name can be a weapon when spoken carelessly. A name can destroy when it is used to silence. But a name can also be a balm. It can be stitched back together with patience. It can be healed with kindness. It can become home again. Her name no longer belonged to the people who hurt her with it. It belonged to the woman who survived it. And that was enough.
By Inayat khan7 days ago in Humans
Essence, Embodiment, and Relational Reality
The Failure of Reduction and the Need for Synthesis There is a persistent failure in many modern attempts to explain what a human being is. Some frameworks reduce the person entirely to matter, insisting that identity, consciousness, morality, and meaning are nothing more than emergent properties of physical processes. Other frameworks move in the opposite direction, detaching spirit from reason and grounding belief in intuition alone, often at the cost of coherence or accountability. Both approaches fail because both misunderstand essence. One denies that essence exists at all. The other treats it as something vague and undefinable.
By Peter Thwing - Host of the FST Podcast7 days ago in Humans
Resistance Is Not the Enemy
Iron sharpens iron. Brakes save lives. Friction preserves form. Modern culture treats resistance as failure. Anything that slows momentum is framed as obstruction, anything that introduces friction is assumed to be opposition, and anything that interrupts progress is labeled a setback. But this instinct misunderstands how both physical systems and human growth actually work. Resistance is not inherently hostile. In many cases, it is the only thing preventing collapse.
By Peter Thwing - Host of the FST Podcast8 days ago in Humans
The Refiner’s Fire Is Not the Whetstone
There is a difference between being sharpened and being transformed, and confusing the two leads to frustration when growth does not feel productive. Sharpening implies refinement of existing form. Fire implies change in composition. Both processes are uncomfortable, but they operate on different levels and for different purposes. When people expect sharpening and receive fire instead, they often assume something has gone wrong, when in reality something deeper is taking place.
By Peter Thwing - Host of the FST Podcast8 days ago in Humans
