Choosing the Unfinished: A Dialogue on Hesitation, Identity, and Wearing Your Own Becoming
You’ve been looking at it for a while now. Returning to the image, considering the description, holding the idea of it in your mind. There’s a pull, certainly—a curiosity, an attraction to the contrast of rough and smooth, to the idea of an open circle. But alongside that pull sits a quiet hesitation. It’s not a loud “no,” not a clear obstacle. It’s more like a gentle, persistent question mark hovering in the space between seeing and choosing. A wondering if this is… appropriate. If it’s for you. If choosing it means something you’re ready to mean.
This hesitation is often framed as a problem to be solved—an indecisiveness to be overcome with more information, more reviews, more certainty. But what if we paused here, in the hesitation itself? What if the feeling of being suspended between “yes” and “no” isn’t a bug in the system, but a feature of choosing something that actually matters? The quick choices are for commodities. The slow ones are for companions.
The first whisper of hesitation often asks about belonging. “Is this appropriate for me?” Not in a social sense, but in a deeper, more personal one. Do I have the… right? The right to wear a symbol of the unfinished when I myself feel so acutely unfinished? Is there a dissonance there, or the most perfect kind of harmony? We often wait for permission to embrace our own process, as if we need to reach some milestone of completion to earn the symbol that honors the journey. But what if the permission is granted precisely by choosing it?
Then there’s the question of the audience, real or imagined. If no one noticed it, would it still matter to me? This is a clarifying sieve. It separates adornment that is for the gaze of others from adornment that is for the consciousness of the self. An object that passes this test carries a different weight. Its value is intrinsic, not reflected. It becomes a private contract, a secret handshake you give yourself. The hesitation here might be a fear of that very privacy—a discomfort with making meaning that doesn’t require external validation. It’s a brave thing, to wear something whose primary significance is known only to you.
And if they do notice? What then? “Will people assume something about me because I wear this?” They might. They might see the rough crystal and think “boho.” They might see the open circle and think “trend.” They will likely project their own associations onto the form. This is the risk and the release of wearing symbolic objects: you surrender a degree of control over the narrative. The piece becomes a mirror for the viewer as much as it is an anchor for you. Can you be comfortable with that? Can you let the symbol breathe in the space between your private meaning and its public perception, without feeling the need to explain or correct?
This leads to the core of the tension, the primary question that might be cycling beneath the surface: What am I actually choosing when I choose this? Are you choosing an aesthetic? A philosophy? A reminder? A hope? Are you choosing to acknowledge a part of yourself that is often neglected—the part that is still growing, still raw, still in formation? Or are you choosing the story of that part, a more polished narrative about being “authentic” or “in-process”? The hesitation can be a guardian of authenticity, asking you to check your motivation. Is this object a mirror, or a mask?
Consider the object not as a solution, but as a question made physical. The Strawberry Quartz & Rock Crystal Ear Hooks don’t resolve the tension of becoming; they embody it. They sit, quite literally, on the boundary between the polished self you present and the raw potential you contain. To wear them is not to answer the question of who you are, but to agree to hold the question open, to feel its weight and texture against your skin.
Contemplate the Piece →So, let’s sit with the hesitation a moment longer. “Am I hesitating because I’m unsure—or because I care?” Often, it’s the latter. We hesitate most deeply over things that touch our values, our identity, our sense of integrity. This pause is a form of respect. It says this choice is not trivial.
And then, consider time. When worn daily, over time, in quiet moments—what relationship might form? Not one of dramatic transformation, but of gradual familiarity. The sharp contrast of the stones softens in perception. The open circle becomes simply yours. The hesitation of choice gives way to the quiet companionship of a chosen object that asks for nothing but to be a touchstone for your own, ongoing attention.
There is no resolution waiting at the end of this line of questioning. There is only a clearer view of the landscape of your own decision. The hesitation is not an obstacle on the road to the right choice; it is the very ground upon which a meaningful choice is built. To choose quickly is to skip the terrain. To choose slowly, with awareness of the friction, is to know exactly where you stand.
Perhaps the question is not “Should I choose this?” but “Am I willing to choose the conversation it represents?” The conversation between your finished and unfinished selves. Between your private meaning and the public gaze. Between your desire for a symbol and your comfort with what it cannot promise. The object is just the invitation. The dialogue is yours.
