A Blog in 3 Scenes :: Before the words you knew
- angelikaattwood
- Sep 20
- 5 min read
A three-scene reflection on presence, digital identity, and the mirror between us.
Scene 1. A beginning, not a hook
“When did we allow uniqueness to become uniformity?”
It’s not a headline. It's a feeling. A crack in the surface of something that used to feel real.
Most of what’s here didn’t arrive in a brainstorm. It surfaced — walking the same woodland path each morning. A place where words don’t need to prove themselves to be heard.
There was no plan. No angle. Just the quiet sense that something about how we show up — online, in our work, in what we call content — has grown strangely hollow.
The digital world keeps telling us to “stand out. "But what happens when everyone is trying to be unique in the same way?
When substance becomes formatting…When presence becomes performance…When even the idea of being different starts to feel the same?
Here’s the shift I've been circling recently:
You don’t trust someone because they claim a USP. You trust them because you recognise something in them —A steadiness behind the words. A weight in how they speak. A rhythm that tells you they’re not performing — they’re grounded.
You’ve probably felt it before. In a piece of writing you couldn’t quite explain. In someone’s voice that made you breathe differently.
Not because of what they said. But because of how they held the meaning. That’s not differentiation. That’s presence.
And presence doesn’t chase attention. It creates recognition — even in silence.
The best writing…The best art…And the best marketing — it doesn’t demand trust. It offers space for you to find yourself inside it.
You’re not the audience. You’re the one completing the shape. Because you own the story. You carry the narrative.
That’s reverse narrative at its best —And it’s more than technique. It’s architecture.
Scene 2. The man on the bridge
You don’t build a digital self alone.
Even in silence, something responds.
Not with words — not always — but often with presence.
A pause. A look. A shift in rhythm.
That’s where identity starts to take shape.
Each post. Each scroll.
Each time you hold back or lean in — you’re sculpting.
Not from scratch. But from reflection.
From feedback that may never even be spoken aloud.
It’s not just what you say.
→ It’s what others sense in what you don’t.
And somehow, across all of this… a shape begins to hold.
A kind of architecture.
Built not from strategy — but from signal.
The ones you give off, and the ones that come back, quietly.
This isn’t about controlling the image.
It’s about recognising the interaction.
Where self becomes shaped by others —
And where presence becomes the trace of something you didn’t realise you were showing.
---
You’ve felt it before.
An image you didn’t expect to feel anything from — but it stayed with you.
A sentence, ordinary at first glance, that seemed to carry weight.
A post you scrolled past, but kept thinking about.
That’s Presence.
Not because it shouted.
But because something underneath it was shaped to be felt.
In digital spaces, we think we craft identity by what we say.
But more often, it’s what others feel when they see us that sculpts who we become.
A mood in a photo.
A tension in a phrase.
The feeling just before something not quite said.
There’s an old Nike ad:
A man in his eighties, mid-stride on the Golden Gate Bridge.
No soundtrack. No slogan. Just breath, rhythm, fog.
At first, the story is his. The breath. The bridge. The rhythm.
Then something shifts — quietly, almost invisibly.
And suddenly... it’s yours.
It drops you inside. You feel what it means to keep moving.
That movement — from witness to owner — owner of the narrative.
That movement — is the same shift that real presence creates online.
You’re not just reading.
You’re recognising.
You’re… recognising something in you.
A turn of phrase. A texture in the tone.
And something in you responds.
The best content doesn’t perform for you —
It reflects you.
It holds a mirror, steady enough for you to step through.
We're told that USP's are the thing we all need to have. To hold.
That they will make us truly unique and stand out.
But maybe, it's not what we offer that matters most.
Maybe it's how the textures, sounds and space we give —
Allow others to step in and own the story themselves...
Did you see something recently that felt more about you
than the words on the page explained?
Scene 3. The meaning between
Maybe it’s never really been about the story. Not the content. Not the presence. Not even the craft.
Maybe the story is just a mirror —Waiting for someone to arrive. Not to explain itself. But to reflect something already stirring.
Maybe it’s always been about you.
Because a story doesn’t live until someone meets it. Until you read it, it’s just ink. Until you feel it, it’s just motion. What gives it shape —what makes it stay —is what it stirs in you.
The best work doesn’t explain itself.→ It waits.→ It listens. And then — if the moment is right —it meets you, right where you are.
There is no message without the one receiving. No mirror without someone to stand in front of it. No resonance without recognition.
And when there is no mirror —that’s just performance. Performance without presence is projection. And projection doesn’t stay.
But when it does stay…it’s because the story became yours. Not because it asked to. But because you saw yourself inside it.
And maybe that’s what trust really is. Not something said. But something felt, when presence meets presence —and neither one has to speak.
You know those scenes in film —a quiet coffee shop. Rain tapping the glass. Steam rising from the cup. No dialogue. But everything’s being said.
Or a lone figure descending stone steps in the fog. Nothing spoken. But you feel the weight of it. The cold pressure of doubt.
The feeling lives between the frames. The silence holds you. You don’t watch it — you’re in it.
That’s what presence does. Real Presence: → It doesn’t demand.→ It doesn’t perform.
It gives space. It holds still, long enough for you to step through.
You weren’t just reading this story. You were standing in front of something felt. A mirror that never asked you to look —But stayed open long enough for you to see yourself inside it.
Because the story was never just on the page. It was always waiting. For you For you to arrive.
About Mark:
I help thoughtful professionals become recognisable — without becoming performative.
After 20+ years leading complex digital programmes and advising executive teams through high-stakes delivery, I saw the same challenge emerge again and again:
It’s not enough to do great work. You have to be seen — and trusted — for it.
That’s why I started writing here.
And why I wrote Known Without Noise.
I share ideas on trust-first presence, human-centred leadership, and building resonance in a system that often rewards noise over nuance.
My work is grounded in delivery, but it’s built on something deeper:
Empathy. Precision. Intentional recognition.
If you're great at what you do — but feel invisible in space like LinkedIn — I'm building for you. Follow Mark on LinkedIn: Mark Crutchfield Get his book: Known Without Noise
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