What If Clarity Isn’t Something We Find—but Something We Create?
I was driving home, listening to Clarity by Zedd feat. Foxes, and of course I’m singing along:
“If our love's insanity, why are you my clarity?”
I've always loved that line—not just because of the beat drop that follows (although, let's be honest, that definitely helps) but because of the tension it creates.
And “Clarity” happened to be the theme for this week's Summit Yoga class. As I was thinking about the word, something came to me:
We tend to think clarity means knowing exactly what to do, where we're going, or what we want next.
But what if clarity isn't about having all the answers?
What if it's simply being able to hear yourself clearly enough to know that you're okay—even when you don't know exactly what comes next?
A Song Born Without a Clear Plan
To dive a little deeper, the way this song was created was anything but clear.
The song originally started as a collaboration between Zedd and Porter Robinson while they were on their Poseidon tour. They worked on the chords and initial production together, after which Zedd continued developing the instrumental on his own.
The vocal melody and lyrics had an interesting history, too. Matthew Koma had originally written the vocal for another Zedd track, “Lost at Sea,” but Zedd felt it was too emotional for that song.
Then, just days before his album deadline, Zedd heard Foxes and realized her voice was what the song needed. He had actually considered leaving the song off the album because he wasn't satisfied with the vocals.
And Foxes herself later described having a real emotional connection to the song and feeling that she was naturally meant to sing it.
The song wasn't created from a perfectly clear plan.
It evolved through experimentation, uncertainty, and recognizing what fit.
Which, honestly, is often the hardest and most important part:
Trusting when something is right.
Clarity in the Middle of Chaos
The song itself—if you've ever heard it—isn't about clarity in the typical sense.
It's not about having a peaceful, perfectly clear mind.
It's describing clarity in the middle of chaos.
The narrator is caught in a relationship that seems simultaneously destructive and irresistible. The central question is:
How can something be both the thing that hurts me and the thing that makes me feel whole?
The chorus deliberately puts opposites together: tragedy/remedy and insanity/clarity.
That's the central tension of the song.
And maybe that's what makes the word clarity so interesting.
We often think clarity means having all the answers.
But maybe it doesn't.
Maybe clarity is simply being able to see what is actually happening.
That's a very different thing.
What would become clear if you stopped trying to figure everything out?
Our minds are constantly being filled.
Notifications.
Opinions.
Other people's expectations.
To-do lists.
Fear.
Comparison.
Past experiences.
Future worries.
The story we tell ourselves about what should be happening.
And then we wonder why we can't hear our own thoughts.
Why we can't see a clear path.
If we think about the song again:
“If our love's insanity, why are you my clarity?”
The fascinating thing about this line is that the person isn't necessarily creating clarity.
The relationship is chaotic, but somehow it reveals something.
And maybe that's true for us, too.
Sometimes clarity doesn't come from adding another answer.
Sometimes it comes from removing the things that are making it difficult to hear yourself—to know your truth.
Three Kinds of Clarity
The way I see it, there are three different kinds of clarity we can cultivate:
1. Mental Clarity — What is actually true?
Can you separate facts from assumptions, fears, stories, and other people's opinions?
Sometimes our minds take one little piece of information and build an entire story around it.
Clarity asks us to pause and ask: What do I actually know to be true?
2. Emotional Clarity — What am I actually feeling?
Instead of immediately trying to fix, suppress, or explain an emotion, become curious about it.
What am I feeling? And why might I be feeling this way?
You don't necessarily need to do anything about the feeling right away.
Sometimes simply acknowledging it creates clarity.
3. Directional Clarity — What do I actually want?
Not what your partner wants.
Not what your family expects.
Not what society says you should want.
What do you want?
That question can be surprisingly difficult to answer when we're constantly listening to everyone else's voices.
So How Do We Create More Clarity?
We create space for it.
Try some of these:
Take a walk without your phone.
Journal before asking everyone else what they think.
Spend 10 minutes in silence. Bonus points if you take some slow, deep breaths while you're there.
Write down the problem and separate what you know to be true from what you're assuming is true.
Notice what repeatedly gives you energy versus what repeatedly drains it.
Ask yourself, “If nobody else had an opinion about this, what would I choose?”
Get outside. Give yourself some time and space to settle before making a decision.
Stop consuming information long enough to hear your own thoughts.
Because maybe clarity isn't something we stumble upon.
Maybe it's something we make room for.
Maybe it's already there, underneath all the noise.
And sometimes, we simply need to get quiet enough to hear it.
So I'll leave you with this:
