I wasn’t looking for inspiration, but it found me on instagram. Every so often, there’s a sudden dip in the shallow of the ocean, a nugget of sugar amidst the fluff of the popcorn, a beautiful person with a beautiful story. It’s a story that tells us how they earned their shine. They suffered first, before their new faces or bodies grew in– inevitably, or by way of grit. Sometimes it’s a glorious combination: a fitness journey coupled with a face honoured by age and preceded by some ruthless bullying. Its destiny folded into a 20-second TikTok with mass appeal. I love these videos, because I’m human, and what better kind of justice is there than the kind that the eye can’t deny, like when the poor become rich, or the snubbed become famous. Physical transformations are adored; It isn’t the faces that are bought, or the lives that are handed down, but rather, the dramatics that incentivise hard work and patience, conscious change and evolution.

We look at the images or the videos that show a person in their ‘before state’, and feel inspired to comment, 

“You were still beautiful before.”

The magic was always there, the sort of beauty that we presume to have existed in the face of, or perhaps in response to a struggle uphill. We can see the heart shining through, a heart that is always enlarged by adversity, and sits contently now within the chest of an overcomer. That is what we believe, and it’s what we want to be true of the people who inspire us. There can be no other story. 

Within the childhood chronicles of harsh truths are bitter, random memories. I turned the TV to E! News 14 years ago, and listened to Christian Bale losing it with someone on the set of one of his movies. I knew nothing at the time aside from the fact that he was famous, that I was ten, and that it was one of the most shocking things I’d ever heard. The memory stayed with me like a certificate that verified my understanding of something. Christian Bale’s aggression made the news for the same reasons that explain why Ellen Degeneres has left television, and why the James Corden allegations have held. The truth is unsatisfying– a person can be both commendable and confoundingly cold, and struggles to help it. It’s a well-known error code, to be privileged and cruel; some were always ruthless, but others– instead of being transfigured by their journey, were hardened by it.   

It’s less talked about, the spirit of endurance also being the spirit that toughens to make a person unyielding and unwilling. Hardship can make a person angry afterwards, hard work can make a person haughty. The assumption, of course, is that on the other side of pressure is tolerance, yet more often, it is a person who looks forward to a life where they will never again have to bend. Transformation is self-concerned and self-congratulatory, and though it inspires, it is rarely fit for its purpose of serving others. 

I’ve always had cheekbones, but they began to make sense in my face at about nineteen years old. I didn’t plot my glow up or estimate it. It felt less earned, more gifted. Still, I could’ve easily mistaken it for vengeance, something I did want, like many 18-21s, but it didn’t feel like mine, like how a parent’s wealth is not entirely their children’s. As I continue to evolve, I’d say I feel increasingly decentred; I feel less at the helm of my transformations, and more like a passenger. There is nothing I could do with my growth that would eclipse the purposes of the one who steers me into it. There is always something much larger going on in the moments where it appears to be all about you.