Air is my element in every sense. When I’m sailing or standing atop a mountain, air isn’t just something I breathe, it’s a force I feel on my skin, in my bones, in my thoughts. The stronger the wind, the higher the waves, the more the treetops bend under its power, the more alive I feel. As if a current flows out of me, as if I’m glowing from within. Air hasn’t taught me peace. It has taught me movement.
My thoughts are like the wind, never still. If I could step into my own mind like a cartoon, I think it would look like The Matrix: thoughts racing at the speed of light, each in its own direction, none colliding. Analysis of the analysis, and yet another analysis, because one is never enough. I have to sift through everything a hundred times, from every angle, every perspective.
I’ve often been told that I’m too fast for others, and I feel it. I have to slow down because they can’t keep up. While I’m explaining, I’m already on point five in my head, while they haven’t even grasped point one. Everything is too fast.
When I was younger, it was hard to control that speed. My thoughts were like a storm, everything wanted out, all at once, immediately. Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like if I had learned earlier to quiet that inner rose of winds. Then I realize, perhaps I wouldn’t have reached a single summit. Today it’s easier. Not because there are fewer thoughts, but because I’ve learned that not everything needs to come out. Some are not for sharing. Some are just mine. Some remain inside because they’re too fast, too personal, or simply not ready to become words.
After my time in the lab, my first corporate job was as a marketing assistant. One of the things I loved most was brainstorming. The whole team would gather, each with their ideas, full of laughter, energy, and that special lightness that comes when people open up. And then the most beautiful thing would happen: an idea that just came out of someone’s mouth, as if carried by the wind. An idea that sparked all our minds. For me, that is pure air, a space where vision is born.
But air is not always lightness. Air can also be mental fog. That moment when we overanalyze, when thoughts race like a storm, when everything blurs because there’s too much. And in the workplace, air is most visible.
Air is the way people think. Air is communication, clear or chaotic. Air is the ability to see the bigger picture, to notice what others cannot. Air is creativity, innovation, an idea born from nowhere. But when there’s too much, it all stays in your head. Too much analyzing. Too much talking, too little listening. Too much theory, too little action. And when there’s too little, everything becomes flat, no ideas, no vision. Communication is muddy.
That’s why balance is essential. Air can be a breeze that lifts you, but also a wind that topples you if you don’t know how to guide it.
When my inner wind carries me too far, I don’t seek peace. I seek direction. That is the difference.
Clarity isn’t a gift, it’s a decision: to return to myself every time the inner wind carries me too far. Author’s Note
*Next: Earth – the ground beneath your feet, and the fine line between stability and stagnation
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