I painted for one hour and remembered I am still more than a system for other people’s needs

Dear Delyara, That is exactly what it felt like. Not useful. Not efficient. Not productive. Not helping anyone. Not preventing tomorrow’s chaos. Not earning. Not fixing. Not understanding. Just painting. The colours were not perfect. My hand felt rusty. I could hear the voice in me trying to ask what the point was if the result wasn’t brilliant. Then something softer answered back: the point is that while I am doing this, I am not only machinery. That hour felt like a return. Not to a younger self. To a fuller one. I need more of my life to contain activity that does not have to prove its worth by service. I didn’t know how starving I was for that until the brush was already in my hand.