The Wrong Train & the Lonely Artist
by Leda Green
They say the wrong train always brings you to the right station.
And I believe it — deeply, irrevocably — especially now.
I boarded a train this morning that wasn’t meant to be mine. A digital train, a message sent in curiosity, in a moment of impulse. It didn’t go where I hoped it would. It brought confusion. A sense of being misunderstood. A door that slammed instead of opened.
But maybe, just maybe… it brought me somewhere I needed to go. A station I wouldn’t have reached otherwise.
Because on the other end of that message was a young man. A genius in the making — famous, gifted, too beautiful for his own good, and perhaps, quietly suffering. Behind the polished images and global campaigns lies something unmistakable: a soul under pressure.
And that’s where this essay really begins.
There are many like him.
These lonely and disturbed artists.
People the world worships but doesn’t really see.
People who create to survive.
Who sing what they cannot say.
Who live in public and suffer in private.
Who carry the weight of perfection, when all they want is peace.
I’m not a fan.
Not in the usual sense of the word.
I don’t follow people for the sake of idolizing them. I don’t crave proximity to fame.
What draws me is pain — the silent kind.
The kind I recognize.
Because I’ve been different all my life.
Different in how I think, in what I feel, in how I move through the world.
I’ve known what it means to be misunderstood. To guard my privacy like armor.
To be exposed and unseen all at once.
As one who has been healing from my own wounds — as someone different in my environment — I understand solitude, privacy, even fame. I understand the complex dance between visibility and protection.
But I’m never truly alone. And I am never afraid to mingle, to try, to experience something new.
It might not always bring me to the right station…
but it often brings me to the right anchor.
I’ve learned that sometimes, the soul needs something unplanned.
A detour. A break in the rhythm. A moment that doesn’t fit the schedule.
Ritual becomes a form of love.
Stillness is part of the music.
There is power in patience.
Some truths are poetic, not literal.
And waste — it’s not just environmental.
It’s emotional.
Use what you have. Honor what you hold. Let your life reflect intention.
I’ve developed a unique healing technique — one that can’t be explained, only felt.
It doesn’t involve grand gestures or public performance.
It’s subtle. Intuitive. A gentle but profound process that can carry a person out of inner misery, layer by layer.
No fireworks. Just soft transformation.
And so, I often wish I could offer it to those artists — the ones burning quietly under the weight of expectation.
To whisper into their chaos: You’re not alone.
To sit quietly beside their exhaustion and offer not advice, but presence.
To show them there’s healing beyond applause.
Beyond money. Beyond brands and scripts and followers.
I think of zanshin — the awareness that lingers after action.
A quiet attentiveness that doesn’t end when something is “done.”
It’s the art of finishing well. Stillness after movement. Focus after follow-through.
And I think of mushin — presence without ego.
A state of fluid, instinctive action.
No hesitation. No overthinking.
Just you, and the moment.
Still, I try.
Sometimes clumsily.
Sometimes through a misstep.
Sometimes by boarding the wrong train entirely.
But even then — especially then — I trust the journey.
Because if I’ve learned anything in this life, it’s that nothing is truly wasted.
Every mistake has meaning. Every wrong turn teaches.
And every “no” is part of a bigger “yes” we can’t yet see.
To the lonely artists… I may not know your stage, but I know your ache.
To the quiet seekers, the ones still learning how to heal — I walk with you.
And to myself — and maybe to you, reading this — I say:
Let the wrong trains take you.
Let them show you what you didn’t plan for.
Let them deliver you to the people you were meant to meet.
Even if they arrive wearing fame, silence, or pain.
Because your cracks are not flaws.
They are golden seams.
Healing can be beautiful.
And even if you don’t find the right station…
You might find the right anchor.
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