“Your life is not too small. Your self is too silenced.”
By N.E.N.I.N
The Ache You Keep Misnaming
There’s a voice inside you — not the insecure one that replays every awkward conversation from 2017, and not the pragmatic one that calculates calories and council tax.
I’m talking about that voice.
The ancient one.
The rebel.
The dreamer.
The lunatic that whispers at 3 a.m., “This can’t be it.”
That voice is your inner self. Not the brand. Not the personality you perform on Instagram. Not the polite version of you that fits in open-plan offices and smiles through soul-deadening conversations.
I mean the raw self. The unruly self. The self that would rather be rejected than repressed.
And for most people? That self is in prison.
Fed a diet of people-pleasing, suppressed behind “sensible” choices, and tranquilised by routine.
The Inner Self Is Not a Selfie
The world tells you to “be yourself,” and then punishes you for not being manageable.
Let’s be clear: your true self is inconvenient. It will ruin group chats. It will decline brunch invites. It will make you say, “Actually, I don’t believe in this job, this marriage, this city, or this god.”
That’s why so many people bury it. Because the inner self? It has no chill. It doesn’t care about your LinkedIn profile. It doesn’t give a damn about your five-year plan.
It only wants one thing: authentic expression.
It wants you to create. To write. To dance ugly. To cry loudly. To risk embarrassment for the sake of honesty.
Psychologist Carl Jung called this your “individuation process” — the psychological journey to becoming your true self, distinct from the masks you’ve been taught to wear. But for most people, that journey is postponed until death knocks or depression sinks in.
When Passion Becomes a Memory
Remember when you used to draw?
Sing?
Invent worlds with your toys that made more sense than the adult ones?
Yeah. That wasn’t just play. That was your mind rehearsing for itself.
But somewhere along the line, your inner world got evicted to make space for productivity.
Now your passion is something you “used to love,” like an ex you still cyberstalk at 1 a.m.
And yet, the hunger never leaves. It just changes shape. It shows up as:
- Low-grade anxiety
- Restlessness
- Cynicism that masquerades as wisdom
- That awful Sunday dread that kicks in before Monday even arrives
These aren’t random symptoms. These are mental bruises from neglecting your essence.
Psychological Truth: The Self Must Express or It Will Depress
Here’s the science bit — raw and brutal.
The American Psychological Association has repeatedly shown that suppression of one’s authentic passions leads to clinical symptoms of depression, anxiety, and a decrease in long-term cognitive function.
Translation: if you don’t do what makes your spirit move, your brain will turn against you.
You become your own jailor.
Your mind becomes a bureaucrat, filing away your joy into folders marked Not Now and Maybe Later.
Dr Gabor Maté, one of the world’s leading trauma experts, puts it plainly:
“The more we suppress who we are, the more we become ill — emotionally, mentally, and even physically.”
But we don’t call it suppression. We call it “being realistic.”
And that’s how mediocrity becomes medical.
The World Profits from Your Numbness
Capitalism doesn’t want you on fire.
It wants you tired.
Just awake enough to buy things, but not alive enough to change things.
Your imagination is a threat.
Your ideas are disruptive.
Your joy isn’t scalable.
And your creativity can’t be tracked in Excel.
So instead of nurturing that inner self, you’re taught to sedate it:
- With 9-to-5s that steal your light
- With relationships that ask you to shrink
- With Instagram therapy and “self-care” routines that cost more than your rent
- With curated trauma porn disguised as “content”
- With influencer-led mediocrity worship where ambition gets reduced to “making it out the hood” by selling hair gummies
Don’t be fooled. That ache inside you isn’t a problem.
It’s a compass.
And you’ve been ignoring it.
Creation is Survival
Let’s not romanticise this.
This isn’t about being quirky or artistic.
This is about mental survival.
Every time you ignore the pull to create — whether it’s a business, a dance, a poem, a protest, a damn TikTok — you betray the only version of you that isn’t performing.
And betrayal turns inwards.
The trauma of being unexpressed doesn’t disappear. It calcifies. It turns into:
- Snide resentment
- Jealousy at people who did go for it
- Chronic self-doubt
- Emotional numbness
You’re not “over it.” You’re just numb. And numb is not peace. It’s paralysis.
Let’s Talk About the Dream Deferred
Langston Hughes asked, “What happens to a dream deferred?”
Let me update it:
What happens to a ‘self’ ignored?
It gets polite. It gets quiet. It learns how to smile without showing teeth.
It becomes someone your parents approve of, but your personality can’t recognise.
It becomes your ghost while you’re still breathing.
How You Know You’re Starving
Symptoms of a malnourished inner self:
- You’re always exhausted — even after sleeping
- You fantasise about quitting life more than living it
- You over-identify with fictional characters because real life feels grey
- You hate people who look free
- You hoard notebooks, ideas, screenshots — but never execute
- You cry randomly during songs or movies you can’t explain
This isn’t drama. This is emotional starvation.
You don’t need a nap. You need a reckoning.
What Would It Look Like to Actually Acknowledge Yourself?
To wake up and say, “I am not just a role. I am not just a function. I am me — alive, unedited, unfinished”?
It would mean:
- Quitting that job that pays well but costs your soul
- Leaving the partner who loves the version of you that’s easiest to manage
- Picking up the guitar, the paintbrush, the code, the mic — again
- Writing the damn book, even if no one reads it
- Showing up in the world not for applause, but to breathe freely
Would it be scary? Yes.
Would it be lonely? Sometimes.
Would it be worth it?
It’s the only thing that ever has been.
But What If I Fail?
Here’s the thing: the inner self doesn’t care about success.
That’s your ego.
Your fear.
Your PR team.
The inner self just wants you to show up.
To tell the truth.
To try.
Failure is a capitalist illusion tied to productivity. In the self’s vocabulary, failure isn’t trying and still choosing safety.
Better to fall on your face than live on your knees in a life that bores your bones.
The Myth of Later
You don’t have time.
You never did.
Later is a graveyard where the wildest parts of you go to die.
People talk about “waiting until things calm down,” like peace is a checkout aisle you can queue for.
Here’s the truth: your life will never stop demanding things from you.
The laundry will never be done.
The kids will always need something.
The economy will always be trash.
The moment will never be perfect.
You don’t wait for the moment.
You become the moment.
How to Feed the Flame
- Start before you’re ready
- Create badly, but consistently
- Say “no” more often — even to nice people
- Get around fire-starters, not comfort-lovers
- Schedule joy like it’s your rent
- Kill perfection before it kills your output
- Tell the truth. Even when it’s ugly. Especially then.
You Are Not Too Late
I don’t care if you’re 18 or 68.
If you’re reading this, your inner self is still here.
That spark hasn’t died.
It’s just curled up in the corner, waiting for you to remember.
You don’t need to be reborn. You need to return.
To that original self.
The one before the masks.
Before the fear.
Before you traded magic for safety.
Closing Word: Burn the Beige Life
There are only two ways to live:
- Safe and small, watching others become what you secretly know you could’ve been
- Loud and raw, failing in public but finally feeling alive
The system wants your obedience.
Your family wants your compliance.
Your fear wants your silence.
But your ‘self’?
Your real self?
It wants to set fire to the idea that you’re only here to survive.
You are not a machine.
You are not a brand.
You are not a job title, a spouse, or a follower count.
You are fire in human form.
Now act like it.
About the Author
N.E.N.I.N is a political writer, cultural commentator, and professional slayer of beige narratives. With a voice sharpened by satire and a mind allergic to mediocrity, they dissect British politics like it owes them rent. Founder of Nubian Narrator News and longtime critic of establishment theatre, N.E.N.I.N doesn’t believe in sacred cows or silver spoons — only in systems that work and ideas that slap.
Explore more at https://nenin.co.uk