After watching The Materialists, I’ve been thinking a lot about a tension that keeps showing up in everyday life. The one between stability and depth. Not just in romantic relationships, but also in friendships, in work, and in how we choose to relate to the world.

Stability gives us structure, consistency, a sense of calm. Depth gives us intensity, meaning, transformation. Both are valuable. But they rarely come together without friction.

Personally, I grew up around the idea that stability was a form of happiness. Something you build, maintain, and protect. At the same time, I’ve always been drawn to what feels. To emotion, sensitivity, creative expression. I’m moved by things that shift me, that challenge me, that stay in my mind long after they happen. That’s where I find meaning. And yet I also need the quiet of something that holds. So I go back and forth. I want both. But they don’t always live in the same place.

I don’t think this tension is just mine. I see it everywhere. It feels like part of the cultural moment we’re in. We’re told to choose emotional intelligence, boundaries, self-awareness. But we’re also surrounded by stories that glorify intensity, spontaneity, extremes. We want relationships that are calm and also magnetic. Work that feels secure but also full of purpose. Lives that are balanced but still full of feeling.

That in-between is hard to navigate. Stability can feel too still. Depth can feel too unstable. And somewhere in that contradiction, we end up expecting one thing to do everything. Which often leads to disappointment.

It helps to name this. To acknowledge that we may be asking too much from one person, one job, one phase of life. That there are moments to choose calm, and others to choose intensity. That stability is not the opposite of feeling, and that depth does not have to mean chaos.

As a designer, I think about this often. Not only in terms of personal decisions, but in how we design systems and experiences. So much of what surrounds us is built to keep us moving, producing, staying in control. What would it mean to design environments that allow for uncertainty? That hold complexity instead of trying to simplify it?

I don’t have a clean answer. But I know I want to keep paying attention. I want to make space for both. I want to be held without losing depth. I want to feel without always needing to unravel. And I want to believe that somewhere in between, something real can grow.