This is the story beneath Eccedentesiast, a visual and auditory piece I have been working on for a while. It began as a feeling, then a question, then a journey through memory, fear, tenderness, and becoming. Before I release it fully into the world, I wanted to share the reflection that gave birth to it with you first.

There are moments when I smile and I can feel the distance between the expression and the emotion that should live inside it. And it’s not that the smile is false. It’s that it’s carrying more than it should, the remnants of fear, the weight of memory, the echo of all the times I had to appear fine before I truly was.

This is exactly where Eccedentesiast began: in the tension that exists between sincerity and survival. I have never set out to hide myself behind a smile, but it became something natural because I realized how easily one can become an armor. And with time, it wasn’t even about concealing pain anymore, but about how to live with it, about how to hold it softly enough so it wouldn’t harden me.

The world has never been louder and yet somehow never felt emptier. This is the feeling I kept circling as I created this project. We’ve built entire architectures of connection, but so often they feel like they are made of glass, transparent enough to see through, and fragile enough to break at the slightest touch. We call it closeness, but most of the time, it’s simply performance. I’ve seen (and I’m sure you have too) people measure their worth by visibility, confuse validation with intimacy, and edit their truths into consumable fragments. I’ve done it too. It’s almost impossible not to, when everything around us rewards presentation over presence.

That’s when I began to understand the paradox. Hiding isn’t always deception. Sometimes it’s protection. We learn to curate, to polish, to fit the moment. But the more I tried to perfect the reflection, the more I lost the texture of what was real. Authenticity became another costume, the kind that still earns applause but leaves you cold when the lights fade. It felt worthless. It felt pointless.

Through creating Eccedentesiast, I started noticing the small rebellions against that numbness, the ways love and kindness still manage to survive. I kept thinking about the coded ways we move through life: scanning, optimizing, predicting, filtering. And yet, despite it all, the human heart still resists simplification. It refuses to become “efficient.” It still trembles at beauty. It still hesitates before cruelty. It still wants to be known.

Through each piece of this project, I explored many layers: the fear that disguises itself as reason, the desire that hides behind restraint, the shadows that refuse to disappear. And this exploration made me see a pattern: we are all shedding something (old beliefs, old expectations, old skins) that once protected us but now suffocate us. Shedding isn’t graceful at all. It’s awkward, and most of the time, lonely. But maybe this is exactly what it means to grow. To outlive the versions of ourselves that the world once applauded. I believe that sometimes, the most growth comes not from becoming new but from unbecoming the old.

I found a lot of comfort in the idea that imperfection is a form of truth. Light doesn’t destroy shadow but completes it. Every scar, every fracture, every hidden ache is a line in a map of becoming. To deny them would be to erase the journey.

And so, Eccedentesiast became more than an artwork or a song. It became a mirror that doesn’t flatter, but forgives. It is a creation about learning to smile again, not as disguise but as reconciliation, a smile that no longer hides pain but acknowledges it. One that says, yes, I’ve been there too, and I am still here.

As I look at the world now, I see how deeply we crave that kind of tenderness. We live in an age of constant exposure, yet what we miss most is sincerity. We know how to show everything but feel very little. Maybe the cure isn’t to perform authenticity louder, but to practice gentleness quietly, to treat connection not as a currency, but as a conversation between fragile, unfinished people.

Love and kindness might seem like small things in the face of all this noise, but I have come to believe that they are the only things that still cut through it. They are acts of rebellion in a time that profits from indifference. They slow down the speed of consumption, they re-humanize the world, and they remind us that meaning is something we share.

If Eccedentesiast has something to say, it’s that in a world that measures everything, we must still dare to feel. To choose compassion when it’s inconvenient. To love without transaction. To stay kind, even when kindness feels naive. And to smile, not because the world is perfect, but because we still believe it can be gentler.

At the core of Eccedentesiast are six pieces of art I’ve created over time, each reflecting a different emotion or behavior we face in today’s world. Their names are L’âme Codée, Vespertilio, Anima Velata, Ecdysis, Luce e Ombra, and Désir Voilé. Together, they form the puzzle that is Eccedentesiast. You can click on each title to explore its story, understand its meaning, and see how, woven together, they complete this larger reflection.

Eccedentesiast can be explored, experienced, lived, and felt below.

If you wish to stay close to this journey, you are welcome to subscribe to my channel, as I will be sharing more pieces, films, and reflections there in the near future.

Thank you for reading, watching, and feeling Eccedentesiast!🌹

With love,

Eduard🌹