Suddenly, he asked, without being evasive: "To you, what is stability? My boyfriend always says you have to be stable in everything to get married. And I think stability is having a good job, steady income, someone who understands you and is by your side." He put down the brush, asked again, very gently: "What if one of those things leaves? ". He paused. "Then... find it again. Everyone changes. Like us who do AI, we create systems that can replace and adapt continuously. But I don't understand, if you know everything can change, why do people still depend on each other so much?". He looked at the white canvas, slowly. "Because people are afraid of loneliness. And always hope that something, or someone, will not leave. If you paint a picture where everything, from color to composition, is decided by others, is that still your picture?".
He shook his head. He smiled: "Life is also like that. When I put all the support on the outside, I gave the right to define myself to others. By the time they left, what collapsed was not only the relationship, but my own foundation. Not because they were wrong, but because I had never stood firm on my own." He pointed to the corner of the room, where an old abstract painting was hung quietly. "I drew it when my lover, who was also my soulmate, stepped out of my life. At that time, I was devastated and thought that everything was over. But then after a week lying down looking up at the ceiling, I understood that if I quit painting, I would lose the support, which is also my last refuge." He looked along, then asked as if telling himself: "So in the end, I still have to return to myself, don't I?".
He nodded: "It's just that most of us realize it too late". He looked down at his phone, the screen lit up and then went out in his hand. For the first time, he clearly saw something that seemed obvious, that he had been busy building things that could be measured, work, income, recognition, relationships, forgetting that what operated everything was an internal "system". "It sounds like a self-learning process," he said, half-jokingly, half-seriously. "Yes," he replied, "but not to become perfect. But so that when everything changes, I am not erased with it.
The afternoon sunlight has faded, giving way to the darkness that begins to fall. In a constantly moving, stable world, it is not about keeping everything still, but about the ability not to lose yourself when everything leaves. The inner support, after all, is not a place to hide, but something that helps us continue to step out without fear of being swept away.
