Presence Without Permission
Who am I?
A spark.
Not a steady flame.
Not a raging fire.
Just a spark—fleeting, potent, alive in the moment.
I don’t exist to burn or to glow.
I exist to be true to the moment I’m given.
A spark doesn’t hesitate.
It doesn’t ask permission.
It simply ignites when the conditions call for it.
Sometimes, I’ve been light—
offering warmth, clarity, a quiet glow in the dark.
Other times, I’ve been fire—
disrupting, unsettling, demanding change.
I’ve lit paths.
I’ve burned bridges.
I used to measure myself by what remained—
what I built, what I changed, what I left behind.
But a spark isn’t meant to remain.
Its power isn’t in endurance.
It’s in presence.
It exists only in its moment.
And in that moment—it is enough.
Whether I light the way or set the world ablaze
depends on the moment.
A Spark Is a Beginning, Not a Goal
A spark is not the destination.
It’s the first sign that something unseen wants to be seen.
Not proof—presence.
In some traditions, the spark is the soul—
a divine flicker inside the body,
a reminder that we come from light
and will one day return to it.
But the spark doesn’t wait for belief.
It arrives before language.
Before we call it sacred.
Before we try to explain it away.
You feel it in the chest.
In the pause before truth is spoken.
In the moment your eyes soften—
because something finally makes sense, even if it hurts.
The spark doesn’t demand action.
It doesn’t promise longevity.
It simply says: This is real.
Whether you can hold it or not.
Not All Fire Is the Same
We mistake the spark for a flame.
We mistake the flame for fire.
Then we praise the fire—because it lasts, or because it consumes.
But a spark doesn’t care about survival.
A flame wants to stay.
Fire wants to spread.
The spark just wants to be true.
The world teaches us to endure.
To build. To leave a mark.
But the soul?
The soul listens for what is real now.
And sometimes, now is brief.
A flame is what people praise when they want you to stay reliable.
Fire is what they fear when they can’t control what you’ve become.
But the spark—
the spark is too small to monetize,
too honest to tame.
And that’s what makes it sacred.
Living as a Spark
I used to want to last.
To be remembered.
To build something no one could tear down.
But now I wonder—
what if presence matters more than permanence?
I think of all the moments I showed up fully… and briefly.
A conversation that opened something in a friend.
A word that gave someone permission to feel.
A silence that held space when nothing else could.
None of it lasted.
But all of it was enough.
A spark doesn’t leave monuments.
It leaves warmth.
Sometimes clarity.
Sometimes disruption.
I’ve learned not to apologize for that.
Not to shrink when I burn too bright.
Not to ache when nothing remains.
We aren’t meant to ignite every time.
We’re meant to respond to what the moment asks of us.
And sometimes the holiest thing we can be
is brief—
and true.
The Spark Is Enough
In Tamil, there’s no single word for “spark” that holds all its weight—
but there are words for divine heat (உரு),
for inner fire (அக்னி),
for the first light that comes before language (ஒளி).
And in my own life,
I’ve felt it in my own child’s gaze.
In the hum of an MRI machine.
In the split second between needles during a tattoo session.
Not all of us are called to be flames.
Even fewer are called to be fires.
But all of us carry a spark.
And sometimes, that spark
is enough to light a way,
to begin again,
to remind someone they’re not alone.
So I no longer ask if I’ll endure.
I ask only this:
Will I be true in the moment I’m given?