When I was a teenager, I had pimples that refused to leave. I tried everything—creams, antibiotics, home remedies, prayer—but nothing worked. At the time I saw them only as a curse, something ugly that kept me from feeling confident or seen. Years later, with a little spiritual perspective, I began to think it might have been something deeper. Perhaps those pimples were not defects at all, but part of a secret conversation between my soul and life itself.
As children we carry an effortless light. It shines through the skin, through the eyes, through laughter that comes without calculation. That light is pure creation: the world looking out through us. Then adolescence arrives and everything changes. The energy inside flares like a new sun; hormones awaken, emotions intensify, the self begins to separate from the whole. The inner light becomes almost too bright for the small vessel that holds it, and so nature finds a way to balance it. The skin erupts. A tiny blemish appears on the face, and with it comes the first shadow of self-consciousness. One pimple is enough to terrify a teenager, to make them withdraw from the world and hide their radiance. It is the perfect instrument for the birth of individuality.
For a long time I thought the eruptions were random, but now I suspect the body knew exactly what it was doing. When the soul’s light shines too openly, it attracts every wandering gaze. The world is full of people—good people, just weary—who have forgotten their own light. They are drawn to brightness, unconsciously reaching for it, wanting to feel it again. A child who glows too soon becomes a magnet for that hunger and can quickly feel drained, observed, even possessed by other people’s attention. So perhaps the body steps in as protector, dimming the lamp until the spirit is strong enough to carry it safely. The acne, the awkwardness, the shyness—all of it might be an intelligent veil, a temporary disguise saying, “Hide for now; grow stronger.”
Seen this way, acne is not a flaw but a balancing act. Creation always summons its counterpart—destruction. Light cannot expand endlessly without burning itself out, so life applies a little shadow. It is not punishment; it is calibration. Through that dimming, the soul discovers something it could never know in pure innocence: self-awareness. Before, the child was the light; now the teenager knows the light and fears losing it. In that moment of separation, individuality is born. This is the making of the Hermit.
The Hermit’s story is the natural sequel to adolescence. When the inner sun dims, he takes up an external lantern. That lantern is everything we lean on when the effortless glow is gone—knowledge, philosophy, fashion, faith, the search for meaning. We wander through mirrors and judgments trying to find the source of the brightness we once took for granted. The Hermit is not lost; he is learning to walk by borrowed light until he can ignite his own again. Every self-conscious teenager carrying their secret insecurities is walking that same path, lantern in hand, trying to remember the warmth that once came so easily.
In time, if we listen, the lesson reveals itself. The light never left; it only moved inward to be purified by awareness. The pimples fade, the shame loosens its grip, and we learn to shine again—this time not as innocent children but as self-knowing beings. We realize that radiance without boundaries invites confusion, but radiance anchored in self-awareness becomes compassion. The Hermit sets down the lantern because he no longer needs it; the inner flame has returned, steady and mature.
So when I look back on my teenage skin, I no longer see failure. I see the intelligence of balance. Life was teaching me how to bear my own brightness responsibly, how to keep my light from being stolen or misused. What looked like imperfection was the universe’s way of sculpting individuality, of turning untested fire into conscious warmth. One small pimple was enough to begin that alchemy—to create the distance needed for self-recognition, to awaken the Hermit inside me who would one day learn to carry the sun again without fear.
Thanks,
Ira