The Open Circle: How the "Unfinished" Symbol Was Misread as Mere Boho Aesthetic
We begin with a misunderstanding. Scroll through any platform devoted to modern adornment, and you will find it: the open circle, the incomplete ring, the crescent that refuses to meet itself. It is tagged #boho, #minimalist, #earcandy. It is presented as a shape of effortless cool, a geometric afterthought in a world of ornate design. Its meaning, we are told, is simply "openness" or "flow." A pleasant idea. A decorative one. And, like most pleasant, decorative ideas, it has been drained of its original tension, its philosophical weight, its quiet provocation.
When did we start misreading this symbol? The dilution likely followed the same path as many sacred forms: migration from specific cultural and philosophical contexts into globalized visual vocabulary. The open circle was severed from its roots in Taoist and Buddhist thought, where it was never merely "open." It was, and is, a profound representation of wu wei (effortless action), of the void from which all things arise, and crucially, of the continuous state of becoming. It is the "uncarved block," the potential that exists precisely because it is not finalized. Its power lies in its lack of closure.
From Taoist Void to Marketplace Motif
In Taoist iconography, the circle—often incomplete or containing a void—is central. It represents the Tao itself: ineffable, limitless, and perpetually generating. The famous Taoist "yin-yang" symbol is enclosed in a circle, but the circle itself is a boundary that contains perpetual motion. Earlier depictions, like the xiu (琇), a type of ancient jade disc with a central hole, were ritual objects representing heaven. The focus was on the central aperture, the emptiness that gave the object its ritual function and connection to the celestial. The form pointed beyond itself.
The modern boho iteration retains the shape but loses the pointedness. It becomes a self-referential loop of style. The "openness" is no longer a philosophical stance on non-attachment and potential but a vague gesture toward personal freedom. This shift is not malicious; it is the natural fate of symbols in a commercial, fast-image economy. Nuance is the first casualty.
The Modern Dilemma: Completion as Compulsion
Why does this misreading matter? Because the original symbol addressed a human tension we now feel acutely: our compulsion for completion. We live in a culture of finished products, concluded story arcs, five-year plans, and defined identities. We are taught to seek closure, resolution, and a final, stable version of ourselves. To be "a work in progress" is often framed as a temporary, deficient state on the way to being finished.
The authentic open circle symbolically rejects this. It says: the point is the progression, not the terminus. Your identity, like the circle, can be strong, defined, and beautiful without being closed off. Its meaning is active, generated through its interaction with the space around it—just as our meaning is generated through engagement with the world, not through isolated, fixed self-definition.
A Wearable Dialogue on the Unfinished
The Strawberry Quartz & Rock Crystal Ear Hooks embody this reclaimed symbolism. The ear hook form itself is an open circle, a conscious choice. It is not a closed hoop declaring a finished statement, but a partial arc suggesting continuity. The juxtaposition of rough, unpolished rock crystal with soft, polished strawberry quartz visually debates the tension between our raw potential and our refined self. It is jewelry that does not seek to harmonize these states into a bland unity, but to let them converse.
View the Jewelry Piece →Reclaiming the Symbol: Beyond the Aesthetic
Reclaiming a symbol is not about scholarly pedantry or cultural gatekeeping. It is about recovering a tool for thought. When you see or wear an open circle with this understanding, it ceases to be just a shape. It becomes a question, a reminder, a permission slip.
It asks: Where in my life am I forcing premature closure? It reminds: Strength can be found in flexibility, in the capacity to remain receptive. It permits: You do not have to have all the answers to be valid; you can be meaningfully in-process.
The Role of the Physical Object
This is where an object like jewelry transitions from ornament to instrument. A symbol on a screen is fleeting. A symbol worn on the body enters the rhythm of your day. You feel its weight, you brush against it, you see it in peripheral vision. Its meaning is no longer just intellectual; it becomes somatic. The open circle ear hook, when felt behind the ear, is a tactile nudge. It is a personal, non-verbal anchor to the idea of sovereign becoming—the choice to define your own completeness on your own terms.
Returning to the Symbolic Core
The journey of the open circle from profound philosophical glyph to trendy accessory and, potentially, back to a personal tool for awareness is a microcosm of how we interact with cultural heritage. Symbols are resilient. They can withstand dilution because their core truth remains, waiting to be rediscovered by those who look beyond the surface aesthetic.
To wear the open circle with this consciousness is to quietly opt out of the tyranny of the finished. It is to align yourself with an older, wiser understanding of human nature—not as a project to be completed, but as a landscape to be continuously explored, whose most beautiful vistas often exist at the edges of the map, in the spaces we have yet to fill in.
