Squint Hard Enough and You Might See It

You know the ones, those little light-specks that seem to dance around as if they’ve had too much caffeine and can't decide where to settle. They’re like the sun's nervous breakdown reflected on the surface, a jittery path of shimmer that’s pretty to look at but slippery as hell to define. If you squint, you can see each bright point, a tiny flash of something big—the sun—but also something small, personal. And that's where it gets interesting, because each glint is a split-second epiphany, the kind of moment where life suddenly makes sense, before it doesn’t again.

This constant dance of light isn’t just the sun showing off. It’s life doing what it does best—never sitting still. Our thoughts, like those glints, are always in motion, and just when you think you've caught one, it slips away, like trying to grab a soap bubble with greasy fingers. (chemistry humor, adhesion vs cohesion for all the Chem Eng's out there) But occasionally, just occasionally, you manage to hold onto one. Maybe it’s a thought, maybe it’s a feeling, maybe it’s the universe whispering in your ear, "You’re getting warmer." These moments—whether through the lens of a camera or the lens of our own minds—are the stuff of transformation. They’re like coming home after being away, only to realize that home is both exactly the same and totally different, because you’re different. You see the place, the person, the memory in a new light—literally, sometimes.

We think those glittering insights, those sunlit epiphanies, are rare, but they’re always there, just off to the side, in the corner of your eye, catching the light. The problem is, most of us are too busy shielding our eyes from the brightness of life to notice them. But if you pause, squint real hard, and maybe even hold your breath for a second or two, you'll see them. Tiny sparks of brilliance, bobbing along the surface, showing us that beauty isn’t in what’s static or obvious—it’s in what’s fleeting, elusive, hiding in plain sight.

These fleeting glints of light, these oddball revelations, they’re the clues we need to navigate our strange little lives. Because life, like a glitter pattern, is always moving, and the best we can do is catch a glimpse here and there, maybe hold onto it long enough to say, "Hey, I see it!" before it vanishes and something else takes its place. And in that, maybe, just maybe, we find our way. ☮️