The Unburdened Spirit

Epictetus famously remarked that we are not disturbed by things, but by the views we take of them. As we grow older, we accumulate a heavy inventory of these views—prejudices, anxieties, and the rigid expectations of how the world ought to behave. We become architects of our own complexity, building walls of logic to protect ourselves from the very simplicity we once inhabited naturally. To look at a child is to witness a state of being that has not yet learned to divide the world into categories of gain and loss. They exist in a state of grace where the present moment is not a bridge to somewhere else, but a destination in itself. We spend our lives trying to unlearn the heavy armor we have donned, searching for that original, unburdened clarity that requires no justification. Is it possible that the wisdom we seek is not something to be acquired, but something we have merely forgotten how to hold?

Bahar Rismani has captured this essence of uncorrupted presence in her work titled An Innocent Smile. It serves as a quiet reminder of the joy that persists when we stop measuring the world and simply allow it to be. Does this image stir a memory of a time when you, too, were entirely at peace with the present?