“Transformation is not five minutes from now; it’s a present activity.” — Robert Macfarlane

That it happens slowly does not mean it isn’t happening. Changes can also occur most silently.

Somehow, we expect transformation to be dramatic, like something out of a Charles Dickens novel: a poor boy discovering he’s of noble birth, or a closed heart opened by a child’s laughter. However, transformation isn’t always that storybook miracle we enjoy; sometimes it can be painful, and sometimes it’s so enjoyable we want more.

Hey, Oliver Twist, don’t get it twisted. There just might be more, but life, as we know, is unscripted.

Walk with me…

My path has not been laden with privilege; it’s always been slow, uncertain and unexciting. Perpetually shedding and making room for becoming. Like Dante standing at the gates of the Inferno, I listen for the whispers: “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.” Because sometimes you must lose hope to find something real. I am like Challa, a wanderer, barefoot on the ruins of certainty, searching for something earned, not given, striving for clarity, not comfort, seeking a rebirth, not a return.

Everyone loves butterflies! But few creatures wear transformation as boldly and beautifully as they do. We all want to shine as brightly and beautifully as the butterfly, but many of us are still caterpillars and must, whether we like it or not, go through our processes. We must stay true to the transformation, and not avoid it by snacking on pleasure, and staying stuck in the abyss of comfort.

Like the butterfly, we all want to emerge radiant, glowing freely and be admired by the world. But no one talks about the existential crisis and the discomfort it experiences in its metamorphosis — where the changes happen and the ache of becoming, endured.

Transformation isn’t always about becoming new. Sometimes, it’s about remembering who you are beneath the layers of fear and failure.

This is the story of losing your touch and finding a stronger way forward. A story of cracking certainty and wandering with questions.

Dearest reader,

Let’s wander into the metamorphic space, where comfort dissolves and identity sheds, where we become faceless, stripped of old skin, but emerging with our spirits.

Forged in the stillness of darkness

One with solitude

Strengthened by struggle and pain

Honed by the weight of silence

Turning gently inward

Until wings remember how to bloom.

In the quiet stillness of a green leaf, a caterpillar inches forward, unaware that its essence is reconstructing, and the familiar will soon dissolve. It surrenders to a temporary death and surrenders to the unknown.

What a Caterpillar Teaches Us About Change

Transformation is often likened to growth and self-improvement, but what if it’s something more unsettling? What if, like the caterpillar, true transformation means letting go of everything we think we are?

In the stories of Jorge Luis Borges, transformation isn’t symbolic — it’s essential, a condition of existence. His tales of mirrored selves, shifting time, and endless labyrinths show us that identity is never stable. Reality bends, and so do we. Nothing about who we are is permanent. Borges reminds us that we’re always in the process of becoming. And sometimes, before we can rise, we have to fall apart.

“Even caterpillars need time to chew things over”

The caterpillar is all of us in our comfort zones — chilling, munching through life, thinking we have got it figured out. Wake up, eat, and repeat. It’s simple and safe, no wings, no sky, no surprises. It doesn’t dream of flying, it just wants to eat leaves.

This stage may feel productive and calm; there are signs of growth, but deep down, it’s a bit of a loop. No challenge, no stretch. I have been there, we all have, living life in default mode, doing what we know, and staying where it’s cozy. But here is the twist: the comfort zone is not built for flying, and eventually, something has to shift. Life nudges or (drop kicks) you into the cocoon, and that’s where things get interesting

I once walked from Marina Junction, Eket, to Ibeno Beach in the beautiful city of Eket, Akwa Ibom. If you know the terrain, you may think I was trying to get in some steps and keep fit, or I was attempting a world record. I wish it were for fun. I walked because my heart was too heavy to stay still. A long-time relationship had cracked beyond hope, the friendship had failed, and my life seemed empty. Yes, I had books, I had chess, I had functional systems, but I lacked purpose in that moment.

I had not the slightest idea what I was doing, and time seemed to be my punishment, so instead of revelling in vices to skip time, I walked that evening. I lost sight of the sky, and the hours softened its load on me as my shadow went hiding; all I had was the rhythm of my feet, and a million questions pulsing through my head. I was in full wanderer mode, a restless soul chasing something he can’t quite name.

18 kilometers deep in rumination, regret and realization, but with every step I peeled off a layer of anger, confusion and hope. The road was narrow, but my mind was longer. I noticed everything mindlessly, from the potholes, palm trees, to the oil trucks groaning on the busy road. The sun was setting and bleeding heavily into the sand. I felt the honesty of dusk, and with all the noise around me, the sound of silence was loud, but my thoughts, the loudest.

By the time I reached the sands of Ibeno Beach, I wasn’t healed, but I was clear. Because transformation doesn’t always arrive as a miracle, sometimes, it comes as a long, foolish, beautiful walk. For me, it was that walk, where the shape of my pain gave way to my becoming, and maybe that’s what the wanderer wants, not an answer, but a way to pay attention again to life, to self, and purpose.

If anyone told the caterpillar that it would one day fly, it would laugh it off, since all it knows is to chill, eat leaves and repeat the same. Maybe that’s the thing with potential: You don’t always feel it. Many times, you are living in a different reality and keeping up a chilled routine, thinking you cannot do great things from your small loft. But your future is erupting quietly inside you, waiting for the right moment to unfold.

Don’t think the caterpillar is lazy or lost; it’s just in its early phase. It knows not what it is capable of, and neither do most of us. Sometimes, our environments trap us in routines that disguise themselves as dreams. Still, we must dream.

The Cocoon

“No matter how crude a man’s mind may be, it is always superior to the mind of irrational creatures.” — Jorge Luis Borges; The labyrinth — from the story, The House of Asterion.

The cocoon is often misunderstood. People talk about transformation like it’s a glow-up, as though the butterfly knows what’s coming its way. The truth is, the caterpillar does not crawl into the cocoon thinking it’s stepping into some preset path. It does not dream of wings, it only obeys something ancient –it surrenders.

I have been thinking about this lately; how growth does not always feel like becoming something new, but like quietly falling apart, like a silent eruption.

Now the words of Jorge Luis Borges linger; even the crudest human mind is greater than that of irrational creatures. Why?

Because we can think about our thinking. We can step back, reflect, and question the maze we’re trapped in, even if we don’t yet know the way out. That’s what the cocoon is: a private labyrinth, a slow unlearning of everything familiar. You disappear from view not with drama, but because that’s what real change requires.

It’s a quiet and dark space where life’s hardest moments are brought to the fore. It’s therapy, it’s solitude, loss, big life changes, burnout, and soul searching. Each is a form of cocooning. You are forced to confront the crude edges of your mind and break down old patterns, like a caterpillar dismantling its body before it can grow wings.

Transformation occurs in the chaos of solitude, where you are stripped of distractions, leaving you barefaced with the rawness of your thoughts. In the cocoon, mental bandwidth is built. Life can come fast at you, but that’s the process; you’re becoming.

The cocoon isn’t a trend.

It’s a burial before rebirth.

Without applause, without clarity.
An unfolding in the dark,

Hoping that somewhere inside,
Wings are forming.

Emergence and Rebirth: The Butterfly

“The caterpillar does all the work, but the butterfly gets all the public appreciation”

Butterflies aren’t caterpillars with upgrades, no. They are something entirely new. When the cocoon opens, what steps out is delicate. The wings are wet, the body trembles, and it doesn’t take off right away. It rests, breathes, stretches into this strange new form. This is what rebirth looks like: uncertain, tender, untested, but real.

This stage is where the quiet work finally surfaces. It’s where the grief begins to make sense. Where therapy starts to feel like healing. Where the silence you once feared becomes the ground beneath your feet. This is the part people celebrate, the growth, breakthroughs, clarity, purpose, but often, they forget the cost.

The butterfly isn’t merely a proof of success, but a proof of survival. The emergence and rebirth of the butterfly reflects:

The growth that happened when no one was watching.

The breakthrough that came after everything fell apart.

The sense of purpose that was whisked from reality.

The identity that had to be reclaimed, because it was always yours.

This stage messes with your sense of self. You emerge with memory, but with a different mind, and different needs.

I now see the butterfly as a testament, not an endpoint. It’s an answer to the question: Can anything good come out of this darkness?

Yes. But not without the cocoon, only after folding in first.

My point? Transformation requires the death of the old Self. Real transformation doesn’t come with a manual. It’s not about optimization, nor is it a glow-up; it means letting go of who you were, a call to the complete pruning of the self. That’s the part we don’t post online –the burial before the rebirth.

“Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly.”

That line is stuck with me now. It may sound cliché, but, for me, it’s a lived truth: transformation requires losing who you were to become something real.

So here we are.

You, me, all of us, moving through phases we don’t always understand. Maybe you’re in the cocoon right now. Maybe you’ve folded into yourself, quietly grieving, healing, questioning. Maybe you feel far from emerging. That’s okay. The dark is not the end, it’s the middle. Growth does not announce itself; it whispers and breaks things open before it rebuilds.

So I leave you with this…

Are you resisting transformation, or are you preparing to emerge?

Be gracious with yourself, and take your time; wings don’t form in haste. 💖