Why I Am A Circle, Within Circles

I have been struggling to find my next topic to write about. Usually something springs to mind during the long lonely hours of the night, or something that happens during the day could inspire me. I don’t just write for the sake of it, the subject must have a deep level of meaning for me, purpose above all else. I have various tools I use within my life when I’m lacking personal inspiration, such as round 9 Arturo ‘thunder’ Gatti versus ‘Irish’ Mickey Ward, or music from a broad spectrum, and another favourite go-to for me, is a piece of literacy genius written by my dear friend Charlie Feather’s son Ollie. The piece is called; Circles by Ollie Feather. I urge you, if you have not heard it, to tap this into your search engine and be enlightened. I’ve listened to it many times over the years, and it never gets old. So thank you, Ollie, for your acumen and inspiration for this blog.

Humanity is never just something we carry within ourselves; it is something we extend outward, a circle that widens every time we choose to offer dignity to another person. There is a quiet bravery in providing sanctuary, in becoming a safe harbour for someone who is adrift, in holding space for their fear without being consumed by it, in offering protection even when our own foundations feel unsteady. This kind of courage is rarely recognised, yet it is one of the purest forms of human strength. To give dignity is to affirm someone’s worth; to offer sanctuary is to share your own stability; to act with humanity is to acknowledge that we are all bound together in ways we cannot always see. These acts are not grand gestures but the geometry of compassion, circles touching circles, lives intersecting, each of us becoming part of the structure that allows another person to stand, breathe, or simply endure. In this way, humanity becomes a shared architecture: fragile, brave, and profoundly dignified.

My city is a series of circles, as Ollie writes, not just the literal roundabouts, sea walls, and looping streets, but the invisible rings of meaning that shape how I move through it. Every place I pass through is a return to something: a memory, a version of myself, a moment that once mattered. The city curves around me the way life does, folding back on itself, offering new angles on old truths. Even the people form circles, communities, routines, rituals, each one overlapping with another, each one creating a geometry of belonging. Whether we notice it or not, whether we believe in it or not, these circles are the quiet architecture of existence. They remind me that nothing stands alone, that every path is connected to another, and that perspective is not just how we see the world but how the world becomes real at all.

And beyond the city, the circles widen again. The M25 is one of the clearest examples of circles within circles, a vast ring of motion encircling London, containing within it the South Circular, the North Circular, and countless smaller loops of human purpose. Every day, hundreds of thousands of cars travel this great orbit, each one sitting on four wheels, circles carrying circles, lives carrying lives. Inside those cars are people on wildly different missions: someone heading to work, someone escaping for a holiday, someone rushing to a hospital, maybe someone returning home after a long night shift. Each vehicle is its own world, its own story, its own private calculus of hope, fear, routine, or longing.

I myself spent many years travelling to Essex University for my education which was a pilgrimage for knowledge, and now I travel to Essex to visit the lady whose B&B I stayed in towards the end of my studies, Annie. What was once a journey of necessity, became a journey of choice, my wife and I remain very dear friends with Annie till this day. So, each person inside the circleis a circle themselves, a life with its own centre, its own edges, its own contradictions. The M25 becomes more than a motorway; it becomes a moving constellation of human existence, a reminder that even in the anonymity of traffic, we are surrounded by countless overlapping circles of purpose, emotion, and meaning.

My wheelchair is one of those circles. An anchor I never sought, yet one that steadies me in a world that would otherwise tilt. It gives me safety and security, grounding me when my body cannot. But every anchor carries a shadow: the same weight that keeps a vessel safe in the storm also keeps it from sailing. My wheelchair is no different. It is my harbour and my confinement, my protection and my imprisonment, a paradox I sit in every day. This is the strange mathematics of being alive: freedom and limitation are not opposites but coordinates. They map the space in which I exist. My wheelchair grants me independence, yet it also announces my dependence with every turn of its wheels. It is the tool that lets me live, and the reminder of why I need tools at all. Gratitude and grief sit side by side, neither cancelling the other. I love it because it carries me; I resent it because it must. That tension is not a flaw; it is the shape of truth.

Dependence, too, is part of this geometry. We speak of it as weakness, but philosophically it is one of the deepest structures of human life. To depend is to admit that existence is relational, that no one stands alone, that every life leans on something. Gravity holds us. Memory holds us. People hold us. Even the illusion of self‑sufficiency depends on the quiet labour of others. Dependence is not the opposite of strength; it is the condition that makes strength meaningful. Only something that can fall understands the value of being held. And this is where the geometry widens. Opposites are not enemies; they are necessary counterweights. Joy means nothing without sorrow to measure it. Freedom gains meaning only when limitation draws its boundary. Strength is revealed only where fragility leaves its trace. These contrasts do not tear us apart, they complete us. They give contour to our days, depth to our choices, resonance to our experiences. They are the arcs that form the circle.

Perspective is the architect of all this. Every viewpoint creates a boundary, and every boundary creates meaning. What looks like contradiction is often just two angles of the same truth. Life is not built from straight lines but from overlapping loops of experience, each one revealing something the others cannot. We are shaped by the interplay of what we see and what we cannot see, what we accept and what we resist. In the end, this is the quiet asthmatic of being human: circles within circles, meanings within contradictions, truths curving toward their opposites. My wheelchair, my limitations, my freedoms, my dependencies, they are not separate stories but interconnected in all ways. The anchor that holds me still is also the anchor that keeps me afloat. The paradox is not a problem to solve; it is a pattern to recognise. And in that pattern, in that impossible, necessary balance, I find the outline of who I am becoming; a circle within circles.