Here we are. All taking up space. Each of us in our own way. Some of us command more than others. Some fill the air with cloying perfume. While others over-occupy in loud, oversized garments or with over-the-top bouffants. But most commonly, we spread ourselves wide through daily posts and comments on social media, literal “platforms” or “stages” on which to display ourselves. Celebrities—the greatest spacers of all—stretch themselves across our flat screens, our phone screens, and all corners of the media.

Before the advent of media, there were physical limits to how much space a person could take up. But now, with all the growing media platforms available, we can sit back and fill the cosmos however we like, beyond the physical space we’re in. We feel the need—and now have the ability—to transcend our physical limitations. Today, whether a celebrity or not, we’re all on stage to some degree, shouting “Looky, look at me! Here I am!”

We project our presence, reaching people we’ve never met and most likely never will. Interestingly though, in our quest to take up more space, we also have the power to erase. As easily as we can amplify ourselves globally, we can also disappear. In cyberspace, identities can be deleted and personas abandoned, or, real life can slip away as we become catatonically captivated by our phones, rendering us “not all there.” We can risk losing ourselves to reality by being over-preoccupied with and investing too much time in our or someone else’s “social” image.

So, how do we distinguish between our real needs and those conditioned ones? We need, for instance, to love and be loved. We need to express our creativity, whether that’s in raising a child, writing a blog, or tending to an orchard. We need to nourish our body, our soul, our relationships. 

Our need to expand and gain real power begins with what’s in our 💗. We’re at our best when we conserve our energy and release it only through genuine love, trust, and authentic needs—driven more by that steady, dutiful heart within, and less by the whims of our wobbly ego.

And so I ask: Can we experience things—with more freedom and joy, and without being so attached to the outcome? With a lesser “need” to take up more space? And be a rock that doesn’t roll? 

I’m reminded of Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven:

“And as we wind on down the road, our shadows taller than our soul… The tune will come to you at last, when all are one and one is all, to be a rock and not to roll.”