Journal

"In the middle of the road of my life, I awoke in a dark wood where the true way was wholly lost to me." And thus Dante's Divine Comedy begins.

But how would one re-discover the right path, and more importantly, know that they are on it? According to Anglo-Irish poet David Whyte in his 1994 interview on Thinking Aloud, it's because it disappears. "How do you know that you're doing something really radical? Because you can't see where you're going...everything you have leaned on for your identity has gone. And so you are going to enter the black contemplative splendors of self-doubt at the same time as you are entering this radical new path."   

Exactly one year ago I found myself, like Dante, lost in a dark wood without the faintest idea of where I was going or what I was doing. All I knew was that I needed to start walking. It started first with a gem of an idea–rough contours of a vision, if you will–and then a sketch, and then a single conversation that led to millions and millions of more steps, which has eventually brought me to this very moment stringing thoughts into words, for you. 

Like most people, I began with self-proclaimed radical candor, io io io (ego, ego, ego): I wanted to create exquisite jewelry of the highest levels of artisanal craftsmanship and ethical principles, with beauty and truth as my inner intuitive compass. "Beauty is Truth, and Truth Beauty"––so ends Keats' Ode on a Grecian Urn. What I failed to realise then is that the act of creating something from nothing is also an incredibly difficult attempt to bring voice to the veiled parts of one's self: the parts that feel too afraid to step forward into the light, the parts pushed deep into the sand for fear of shame and ridicule.  

"M'amye, je vous supplie me conseiller lequel vault mieulx parler ou mourir?”––Is it better to speak or to die?, asks the knight in Marguerite de Navarre's 16th-century French fairy tale. In this part of the dark forest where I now am (which may or may not be the exact same place where I first awoke, I have no way of knowing), I have since realised that before loftily invoking ancient virtues of truth, of beauty, of bravery...one must first make the valiant attempt to speak what feels wholly unspeakable. It is this quotidian and humiliating striving for the traumatized parts of one's self to be seen, I think, that characterizes the jouissance of creating beautiful things, because all we want is to be ultimately accepted and loved for who we truly are.   

And now: what comes next? To paraphrase Rilke: nearby is the countryside, where people like myself try with all their might and spirit to be successful in creating things that others cherish and enjoy for all time. You will know it by its seriousness.

Take my hand...

Yours, as ever,
Diyanah Kamarudin

September 4th, 2025.