The private light

Lately I feel the world is lit by a public light, almost theatrical. I do not mean screens, but that glow that demands to be seen, assessed, applauded. A part of me joins the game without much resistance. The ego wants witnesses. The problem is that when everything has to sit under the lamp, what is invisible starts to wither.

The psyche cannot live on shop windows. Jung said it in another way: when consciousness inflates, the unconscious compensates. And now the collective consciousness looks swollen by the need for performance and instant clarity. Everything is explained, measured, shared. Where does psychic intimacy go? Who guards the zone with no metrics, no applause, no hashtags?

I catch myself confusing transparency with truth. Showing everything is not the same as living everything. The persona, that social suit that lets us navigate, has become almost permanent. Even alone, we keep performing. Meanwhile the shadow waits. It is not a movie monster. It is the part left out when I built my acceptable version. What does not fit my public story. What is unseen, but still runs the show.

There is more: the shadow is not only shame. It also holds gold. The tenderness I was afraid to show. The fear of asking for help. The creativity I left unfinished because I did not want to look naive. That part does not bite, but it does call. And if I do not listen, life becomes a hallway with no doors.

When the external noise rises, the soul looks for a different lamp. I call it a private light. It does not shine to be seen, but to see. It appears when I turn off the performance and step into an inner room where there is no one to impress. It is not a comfortable refuge. It can be awkward, because there I cannot edit my contradictions. But it is real.

I do not need grand rituals to get there. Sometimes a small, almost banal act is enough: a walk without music. Writing a line no one will read. Leaving the phone far away while I make coffee. Those things open a crack. In that crack I can hear questions that have no hurry. What part of me asks for rest, not permission? What desire have I kept sealed because I fear losing control? What anger have I never admitted because it does not fit my identity as a reasonable person?

When I let those questions breathe, something rearranges. Not because I find brilliant answers, but because I stop running. The psyche does not ask for perfection, it asks for presence. The shadow does not want to be eliminated, it wants to be recognized. In that recognition, the private light becomes clearer.

I also think about the collective. There is a fatigue in the air, as if we are all carrying a mask that weighs too much. I do not need to name specific events to sense it. The era rewards exposure and punishes pause. In that context, protecting inner life is almost an act of resistance. Not from nostalgia, but for health.

I am not proposing we disappear from the world. I am proposing a relationship less addicted to the external gaze. I am proposing action that rises from a center, not from urgency. The private light is not isolation, it is orientation. It is the small clarity that arrives when the persona loosens and the Self has a moment to speak.

Maybe the most radical thing today is to return to that room. Enter without cameras. Sit with the shadow. Listen to what cannot be monetized. Then go out, yes, but go out with another texture. With a light that is not published, but truly illuminates.