The Same Photograph

“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.”
– Anaïs Nin

Dear Reader,

This past weekend, I went to an event I never would have chosen on my own. However, a client had invited me, so I decided to go.

At an art festival, about 30 local writers had gathered to share stories, memories, and reflections sparked by a piece of art at the show. This was not my usual scene but since I was there, I chose to be fully there. Present, open, and genuinely curious rather than just passing the time.

And I’m glad I was, because I noticed something I might otherwise have missed.

To my surprise, both the pieces they chose and the stories they told were wildly different: each writer had their own rhythm, their own style, their own history shaping what they saw. Listening to them was like hearing a whole new version of reality open up with each person.

It was only as the day progressed that I realized something.

Three of them, independently, had chosen the same photograph of a woman swimming toward the surface, the water growing brighter and more luminous the closer she got to the light. Same photograph. Three writers. Three completely different stories. One saw struggle. One saw release. One saw something else entirely. Each had met the same image and found something drawn from their own life inside it.

I hadn’t even seen the photograph myself while walking the show prior to the readings, so afterward, I went to find it. And standing there in front of it, I understood why it had pulled three different people in.

But here’s what made me smile. The piece that actually spoke to me was the one hanging right beside it, same artist, a very similar motif, yet that was the one that reached in and found me. Even there, in that small moment, the point proved itself.

That’s when it clicked.

When you express something true, through art, through words, through the way you live, you don’t actually control how it lands. It meets each person where they are. Your expression becomes a kind of mirror, and what someone sees in it is shaped by their own history, their own beliefs, their own story.

At first that might sound like a reason to hold back. If I can’t control how it’s received, why put myself out there at all?

But I believe it’s the opposite. That’s the very reason to share it. One honest expression can become a hundred different meanings, touching a hundred different people in ways you’ll never fully see.

Your fullest, most authentic expression was never meant to land the same way in everyone. That’s not the flaw. That’s the gift.

My question for you this week:

Where are you holding back an expression of yourself, fearing how it may land?

Sit with that.

– Ken