Mental Clarity in a World of Comparison

I have known another artist for many years.

We started out around the same time, both working steadily and seriously, each committed to our own practice and way of making things. I work with Japanese calligraphy, while her work belongs to the field of contemporary art. Our materials, contexts, and audiences are different, and in any practical sense, we are not competitors. Our paths do not overlap.

And yet, somewhere along the way, her name began appearing more frequently than before.

I started noticing it in small ways at first—an exhibition announcement here, an article there, a post shared by someone I know. Over time, it became harder not to notice. Recognition, visibility, momentum. The kind of progress that is both admirable and unmistakable.

I felt genuinely happy for her. I still do.

At the same time, a quieter thought began to form beneath that happiness, one that I didn’t immediately acknowledge.

Compared to her, where am I?

When Comparison Becomes Noise

Comparison rarely arrives in a dramatic way.

It doesn’t announce itself or demand attention outright. Instead, it slips into ordinary moments, almost unnoticed.

While scrolling through my phone.

While checking updates between tasks.

While casually observing timelines that are not my own.

Before I realized what was happening, I had started placing our trajectories side by side, as if they belonged on the same scale, measured by the same clock, moving toward the same definition of success. There was no intention behind it—just a habit forming on its own.

This is how noise tends to work.

It doesn’t shout or interrupt.

It whispers just convincingly enough to sound reasonable, even factual.

Why Understanding Doesn’t Stop Comparison

On an intellectual level, I knew all the familiar arguments.

Everyone moves at a different pace.

Success takes many forms.

Comparison, when examined closely, is meaningless.

And yet, knowing these things did not stop the feeling from arising.

Because comparison is not a logical problem waiting to be solved. It is a mental habit, one that disguises itself as realism, presenting itself as “just observing facts” while quietly eroding mental clarity from within.

It doesn’t feel emotional at first. It feels analytical. Measured. Sensible. And that is precisely why it can be so persuasive.

Denoise Your Life: Naming the Noise

At some point, I stopped trying to correct the thought.

I didn’t counter it with positivity.

I didn’t tell myself to work harder or think differently.

Instead, I did something much simpler.

I gave it a name.

This is noise.

It’s not truth, not insight and not something that required an immediate response or decision.

Just information that did not deserve control over my next move.

That small shift—nothing more than a quiet act of labeling—changed the way the thought functioned. It didn’t disappear, but it lost its authority.

Fudoshin: A Japanese Approach to Mental Clarity

In Japanese, there is a word: Fudoshin (不動心).

It is often translated as “an immovable mind,” but that translation can make it sound stronger, harsher, or more forceful than it actually is. It suggests rigidity, as if the goal were to become unaffected or unshakeable.

In my experience, Fudoshin is something much more modest and practical.

It is not about suppressing emotion.

It is not about being untouched by what happens around you.

It is about not being pulled unnecessarily—about maintaining mental clarity by keeping an appropriate distance from stimuli that do not serve your judgment or your work.

Mental Clarity Is About Distance, Not Strength

What I have learned, slowly and imperfectly, is this:

Mental clarity does not come from force.

It comes from space.

Comparison still appears from time to time. The noise does not disappear entirely, and I don’t expect it to. But I no longer let it decide what comes next.

I don’t argue with it. I don’t follow it.

I acknowledge its presence, and then I return to my work.

Living with Noise Without Letting It Decide

Denoise Your Life does not mean eliminating noise altogether. That would be unrealistic, and perhaps even undesirable.

It means learning how to live among distractions without handing them authority over your thinking. It means recognizing which signals matter, and which ones do not need to be answered.

Fudoshin is not a declaration of strength.

It is a calm, repeatable practice—one that can be returned to, again and again.

A way of standing still just long enough to choose your own direction, even while the world continues to move around you.