Invisible, Not Unseen: Quiet relevance.

Invisible, though not unseen.
She moves quietly, polishing the rail that so many hands have touched.
The mall hums with its usual theatre and performative coolness: brands, lights, and pretty people in motion.
Yet meaning lingers there, in the slow rhythm of work that no one stops to notice.
I sometimes feel like a stranger in these spaces, wedged between the artifacts of what’s sold and the truth of what sustains it.

I have been invisible: A conscript who was a cog in a government machine. I once knew how to shine a lot of stuff.
The handrail in the mall shines, the floors are clean. Not from design, but from effort. That’s where something honest resides.

We read books about meaning and endlessly seek purpose.
The podcasts lament how enslaved we are, and the TikTok videos make us nod, subscribe, and emote in the comments-section.
But maybe, meaning begins with paying attention, out there where we ‘got it good,’ learning to compare down instead of up.
Learn to notice the people quietly keeping things running, the small acts that make life work, the effort that doesn’t make headlines but keeps the world moving.
Meaning can seem abstract, until the mundane unexpectedly stops. When our waste, filth and vulnerability surfaces, during strikes or system breakdowns.

While the rest sips coffee, posturing, chasing purchases that will be obsolete in six months, she’ll still be here, cloth in hand, keeping the place alive, perpetuating meaning through quiet necessity and relevance, doing what matters.