I never felt connected to the language of surrender.
I think I understand the idea. A deep intensity that transcends us. The liberation of no longer having to fight, to perform, to hold ourselves together. I can understand the appeal. But words are not neutral. They do not simply describe an experience. They interpret it. They give it flavor. They place it inside a constellation, a culture, a mood, even a way of being.
For me, surrender speaks of conflict. It speaks of struggle, power, defeat. It speaks of pain and danger.
Of course, life can be such things. There is shadow. There is hardship. There is an inner journey that can be described as burden, as the push of a rock toward the top of a mountain, a painful ascent, the carrying of the cross toward salvation.
Give up, then. You do not have to suffer so much. You can just surrender.
But this language does not speak to me. And the more I think about it, the more problematic it becomes. First, it narrows the experience before it even begins. For those who do not resonate with it, as I did not, it demands an initial sacrifice, a leap of faith, a first loss. And then there is another problem, perhaps a deeper one. What kind of integration does it leave behind? To frame life as a distasteful path can leave us paralyzed, in the worst case even addicted to redemption.
For me, it was a barrier. One I could only cross because of how much I needed what was on the other side. Only then could I begin to see that there were other stories.
There are times when life becomes difficult not because of one great decision, but because we have to decide all the time. Which school to choose for our children. Which country to move to. Which work to accept. Which future to trust. Whether to buy or to rent. Whether to marry, whether to stay, whether to leave. We are constantly deciding what to do, how to live, who to become. There is always something missing, something to resolve, some next version of ourselves waiting ahead.
It is exhausting. Frightening.
Maybe this is why people love omakase. You enter the experience and allow yourself to be carried somewhere. There is trust in it. Relief too. You do not have to manage the whole sequence. You do not have to calculate every step or worry about choosing wrong. You can simply arrive and let the experience go, be one with the experience.
Would you say that you surrender to the chef?
I would not.
Or think of the sea.
The sun is blinding your face as you approach the shore. It is the first swim of the summer and your body is still coming out of spring. The water is freezing cold. Your feet do not want to go forward. You miss hibernation. And then you go in.
There is a brief blackout. The breath stops. The cold surrounds your body like lightning, shocking it into tension. Everything is blue. Then you emerge. Total bliss. You turn back toward the beach and see the shore while the sun warms you differently. The breeze becomes a soft touch on your head. You feel exactly where you are meant to be.
Did you yield to the beach? Did you surrender to the ocean?
I do not think so. I would not say it that way.
Something happened, certainly. You entered an experience that took you out of yourself. You opened up, took risks, allowed space to be affected. You were brought into contact with something that reshaped how you move through the world and left you with a sharper sense of being alive. But that is not defeat. It is not submission.
Maybe we need different words for certain experiences.
Words that do not begin with power or defeat, but with trust. Words that carry delight and connection. Metaphors of being guided, of being carried, of being brought into relation with something larger, without placing all the emphasis on pain, tension, and sacrifice. A nice meal. The sea in summer. A practice that allows us to lean in, not because we are overpowered, but because we are invited.
That feels closer to my experience than surrender ever has.
Pablo Aida