The ‘Ugly’ Phase
Does the final form deserve love more than the process?
I have a friend who is an amazing artist. A visual one. She creates the most hauntingly beautiful paintings, teleporting you to another dimension while submerging yourself in the stories they tell. Since I’m her friend, I’m in the privileged position of seeing her work in progress. Hearing the first sparks of inspiration, and seeing the first sketches. The first strokes of paint on the otherwise empty canvas. And I love to see it. It’s like watching history being made in real time.
The other day, she sent me a picture of her current project, partly done, partly undone. She told me that it was in its “ugly phase,” a term artists apparently use for an underdeveloped project. It got me thinking about our definition of beauty and the rules we follow around worthiness. I found this to be a beautiful metaphor for us as human beings.
Not only do we look at our projects as undeveloped and worthy of love when they’re finished, we’re ashamed of the progress while wanting to be proud of the result. This applies to the way we look at ourselves as well; we hide our imperfections, self-proclaimed flaws, and other aspects of the self until we’ve hidden them beneath the layers we choose to show to the world.
Isn’t it strange that we try to hide the process, and therefore hide the aspects that contributed to our becoming, only to flaunt the end of what we’ve become? We try to erase, override, cover, or forget the parts of ourselves that were more than necessary at one point in time. What would we be without the first sparks of inspiration, the messy notes, the pencil sketches, or underlayers of paint that we once were?
We are all extraordinary works of art. Living mosaics, shaped by everything that has ever touched us.
Our favorite meal might have been a recommendation from a friend we haven’t seen in decades. The way we love has been gently molded by the echoes of those we once held close. Some relationships taught us kindness, others patience, but every soul that crossed our path left a mark. Some lessons arrived wrapped in soul-shattering heartbreak, others in moments of selfless care that taught us how to trust, how to let someone carry us when we could no longer stand on our own. Even the way we cook our rice might be a subtle inheritance from a colleague, a parent, or an old lover.
We are mosaics made of memories, shaped by moments, colored by connection. Never finished, yet always whole. From the moment we were born, we were complete, yet each brushstroke across the canvas of our being brings us closer to the masterpiece we are meant to become. The process of becoming is a beautiful, chaotic, and sacred mess. God didn’t create the Earth in a single day, and neither are you. Embrace each step of the way, and remember that the becoming is just as worthy of love as the result.
ARTWORK CREATED BY THE AMAZINGLY TALENTED ANNIE CHEN
check out her work here
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