The Why I Didn’t Say

(And Why I’m Saying It Now)

A story about a conversation, a mistake, and a moment of clarity.

I really thought I’d said it all.
About a museum meeting — the one that didn’t go as planned. About how it left me confused, exposed, and strangely… also seen.

I wrote a blog about it. About how the conversation took a different turn than planned, how I believed my carefully prepared story about Company of Many didn’t quite land the way I’d hoped, and how — in the quiet aftermath in my own head — some new light began to rise.

But that blog?
It wasn’t finished.
I left something out.
Not on purpose — I just didn’t see it yet.
Or maybe, to be honest: because I wasn’t ready to face it.

The Part I Did Write

A summary of what I wrote goes something like this:

I was invited by a museum to talk about my work. I’d thoroughly prepared. I had a polished, well thought out narrative. I had my words in order.
So I thought.

And then the conversation took a different turn — in the best way, really. I was asked questions that cut much deeper than I expected.
Good questions. Not formal ones. Real ones. Questions that stir things.

Why did I change the name of the project from Meeting Abraham to Company of Many?
What really drives me in my work?
What’s underneath it all?

I don’t think I was able to give a real answer.
I deflected.
I talked around it, or maybe along with it.
I only made everything more complicated.
I walked out feeling like I’d failed.

A little later, settling into a café chair, I thought of that big piece of paper I saw hanging in the office — Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle. A TED Talk from fifteen years ago I practically know by heart, but which suddenly landed. (If you haven’t seen it: I really recommend it — it’s a surprisingly useful insight into how we work as humans. Also, the rest of this ramble is loosely built on it.)

In those first scribbles (maybe a blog, I thought), I wrote:
“I keep pushing my ‘Why’ aside. Not because I don’t know it. But because I don’t believe it’s enough. I believe my Why is curiosity. The urge to see, to experience. But it feels too light. Too vague.”

So I realised I had tried to dress it up in bigger words. Other people’s words.
But now, looking at it again — a little sharper this time:
Curiosity isn’t my Why.
It might be my How at most.

What I Didn’t Dare to Say

So… what is my real Why then?
What’s beneath it all?
Here it is. The Why I didn’t say that day.
Not in the conversation, and not even in the first draft of that blog:

I believe we’re all the same.
Not necessarily in what we do, but in what we are.
Human. Equal. Worthy.

That’s it.
The simple, but uncomfortable truth I kept avoiding.
Not uncomfortable because I don’t believe it — I believe it deeply.
But because it feels so big. Too bold.
Too obvious and at the same time too easily misunderstood. Too vulnerable.

So instead of saying it, I filled the space with other people’s Whys.
My Company of Many colleague Lisa’s. The museum’s. The assumed expectations of publishers or curators.
Everyone’s… but mine.
And I only really saw that later that evening, when I was talking to my love.

The Conversation That Made It All Click

I told her that I had secretly wished she’d come with me to the museum.
She answered gently, but honestly: that she hadn’t really felt invited.
My question had sounded more like “come if you feel like it” than “I’d really love (let alone ‘need’) for you to be there.”

She was right.

I had made my ask smaller than my longing. Deep down, my question already held the expectation that she wouldn’t come.

Why?

Because I wanted to protect myself from a possible no.
Because if she didn’t come, and I had actually said that it mattered to me, it would have hurt.

And then it clicked:

I do this all the time.
I take the weight out of things, just in case they’re not picked up.
I shrink my longing, or hide it altogether, to protect myself from disappointment.
I reject myself first — so no one else has to.

And there’s the link with that conversation in the museum.
I didn’t speak my Why. I buried it under layers of complexity.
And in doing so, I made real connection basically impossible.
I offered all kinds of other threads. Other perspectives. Anything but my own core.
Because if I keep that to myself, and someone rejects it… then at least it’s not me they’re rejecting.

Right?

Running

There’s a book I haven’t read yet, but it’s about fawning — a fourth coping mechanism alongside fight, flight and freeze, where you adapt and please in order to stay safe.
When I heard about it I immediately thought: “Oh, that’s not me.”
But just like the Golden Circle poster, this book held a puzzle piece. The link to survival strategies.
Now I realise: I don’t fawn.

I run.

I stay physically present, I talk, I explain — but inwardly I’ve left.
I hide in analysis.
I throw ideas on the table so no one gets close to the core.
Because if someone really sees me… and then says no… what then?
So I get ahead of it.
I give them something else to reject.

Because somewhere deep down I carry a question that I think lives in all of us:

“Am I enough?”

I realise I’d rather not ask that question at all… than the possibility of receiving the wrong answer.

The Paradox of the How

Here’s where it gets philosophical. Because these are the things I find hard, painful, but deeply fascinating and beautiful.

Simon Sinek says: start with Why.

But I don’t think that’s the beginning. It works for companies, for organisations — but not for me. And I hardly dare say it, but I don’t think it’s the beginning for anyone. Underneath that Why is something even deeper — something we all share, even if we don’t always (want to) realise it.
The real core is that question we all carry, each in our own way:
Am I enough?
That question lives in our bodies, in our choices, in how we do our work and why we even want to make a difference.
Our “Sinek Why” — our mission, our drive — is often a response to that deeper layer.
We want to contribute, to heal, to build, to change… but underneath all that is a longing to matter.
To feel that we’re enough. Enough to be seen, to be heard, to be loved.
So before you get to the Why, there’s first the Why behind the Why.
The thing that connects us all: The fragile business of being human.

What I See in Others

Whether I’m photographing in Jordan, Mali or Peru — whether it’s a posed portrait or a quiet moment by a dusty road — I keep seeing the same thing:
People want to be seen.
Seen in how they love.
In how they survive.
In how they try.
In how they hope.
In how they thrive.
That’s what connects all my projects. Even before I knew it, I was searching for that sameness.
That quiet “me too” beneath it all.

That’s where my answer lives.
My mission, or deeper drive on that layer of “am I enough?”
If I can see, feel and even capture that deep down we’re all actually the same — everywhere — and if I can feel that everyone I photograph is more than enough — which I most certainly do —,
then there’s only one thing that can follow…
That I am too.

The Risk of Telling the Truth

So yes.
This is the Why I almost didn’t write down. As I couldn’t reach it myself.
And at the same time, the Why I’ve been circling for years.

I still hesitated to share it all.

Not because it isn’t true — but because it feels so true, it scares me.
Because the moment I speak it, I can’t blame others anymore for not seeing me.
Then I have to be truly present.
Not just with my camera. Or with my words.
But with my whole, vulnerable, oftentimes insecure heart.
Maybe that’s the only way life really works.
Maybe that’s the only way I can truly be met.

So here I am.
I’m not running.
I’ve said it.

(And Why I’m Saying It Now)

The Invitation