The other day, I came across a post my friend shared on Instagram. She had AI generated Yearbook photos inspired by the 1990s – versions of herself in different costumes, outfits and aesthetics.
It looked like so much fun so I asked her for the info and downloaded the EPIK app, paid the $4 it took to generate the photos and had so much fun looking at them.
There were artsy ones, grungey ones, athletic ones, studious ones. Each of these giving a different personality and life story.
As I observed these AI generated photos, I realized that each version of this ‘Jules’ existed as potential within me. I spent a lot of my life boxing myself in, thinking I couldn’t expand into a different version of myself. You don’t have to only choose one and stick with it – unless you want to.
All of these different versions of ‘you’ exist simultaneously within you. And each one of them has their moment to shine. And then there’s the core ‘You’, sitting in the captain’s seat. This one acts like the president of all the ‘yous’ that exist. It can veto an idea from one of the other versions. It can say, “okay, let’s try this” and then you maybe do something you usually wouldn’t.
Sometimes I feel like a chameleon. Depending on the day, or maybe the time, a different version of myself wants to be expressed. It helps me feel connected to all types of people. Sometimes I’m a brooding artist. Sometimes I feel like I have a farm and I’m visiting the city to pick up supplies before I head back to my quiet garden oasis. Other times, I feel like a joyful and curious child, new to the world and gazing in wonder and amazement at everything.
I’m not sure I will ever solidify into a specific and exact version of myself. My energy and essence feels fluid. It needs to shift and change in order to feel fulfilled.
The one core essence that really comes through strongly is the one of a writer. The one that enjoys observing the external and internal – these thoughtforms that pass by like clouds in the mind, taking these and finding the appropriate words that would do these thoughts justice.
Sometimes, I sit and think: silence is the most underrated language. If you sit in silence, especially with someone else, you will understand and learn more than speaking will. Because silence produces inner knowing. It gives you the answers that, sometimes, words obscure and complicate.
While speaking, words and communication are important to convey things…silence and body language are, perhaps, the most ancient of languages. Something I feel that society has forgotten.
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