When we observe a human being, what we see is a physical form — a frame defined by height, weight, complexion, and age. This form is a biological machine, magnificent yet finite, shaped by evolution and limited by matter. Yet this visible entity, our body, is merely the tip of the iceberg — the only tangible part of an existence that is largely intangible. Beneath every smile, every gesture, every step taken, lies a vast inner world: a dynamic realm of memories, emotions, thoughts, desires, regrets, aspirations, beliefs, and inner conflicts that defy measurement or containment.
Our inner universe — the domain of consciousness — is where the essence of our being truly resides. Imagine, for a moment, if the sum total of your life experiences, inner dialogues, dreams, anxieties, and moral dilemmas could take material form. What would be its size? What would it weigh? Could it even fit inside a stadium, a city, a continent? The truth is, the mind and the soul operate in a dimension that transcends the physical. As French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry once wrote, "What is essential is invisible to the eye." The human body is the lighthouse; the ocean it illuminates is the soul.
Consider an elderly woman sitting on a park bench. To an outside observer, she may appear as simply an aging body, a frame softened by time. But what the eye does not see is the library of stories she carries: the love she once gave, the family she raised, the friends she lost, the wars she lived through, and the quiet resilience that saw her through decades. Her body does not whisper the nights she cried or the mornings she rose stronger. Yet these invisible elements define her more truthfully than her physical appearance ever could.
The contrast between visible and invisible existence becomes especially stark when we confront achievements and failures. A Nobel Prize winner might stand before an audience holding a medal, yet the visible reward is just the final page of an internal saga — countless sleepless nights, failures, doubts, and moments of near-giving up, none of which are seen by the crowd. Inversely, someone may be living a life of quiet despair, carrying the invisible weight of lost ambitions, heartbreaks, or inner battles, all while walking unnoticed among others, seemingly normal.
If human existence were to be represented materially in all its dimensions, our physical body would be a mere pebble sitting atop an immense invisible mountain. Think of an iceberg: 90% of its mass lies underwater, unseen and massive. Similarly, our visible body — the part by which others often judge us — is just a sliver of who we truly are. The deeper part, submerged in privacy, memory, and perception, is too vast to be measured, yet it is the true core of our identity.
Psychology often touches upon this asymmetry. Carl Jung wrote extensively about the unconscious self — a realm teeming with archetypes, suppressed desires, and inherited patterns. “Until you make the unconscious conscious,” he noted, “it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” This suggests that much of our existence is shaped by the unseen parts of us. Our body may act, but it is the subconscious that scripts much of that action.
Real life often confronts us with the limits of bodily visibility. A soldier returns from war seemingly intact, yet suffers from PTSD — trauma etched invisibly into his psyche. A child may show no signs of distress yet suffer deeply from emotional neglect. These are not failures of the body, but of the external world's inability to perceive the immensity and fragility of inner life. The body's silence in these moments is misleading. It does not scream, but the soul does.
Social media, where visual performance dominates, further exacerbates this illusion. We curate images of our bodies, smiles, meals, and travels, but rarely do we display the messy, raw aspects of inner existence. We become performers of a visible fraction of ourselves, while the majority remains hidden, even from ourselves. In this way, the illusion that the visible body represents the whole self becomes more deeply entrenched.
In the professional world, too, judgments are often made based on appearance, poise, or spoken words — all surface-level indicators. But behind every “confident speaker” may lie crippling self-doubt, and behind every “underachiever” may exist a vibrant, unrealised potential. The body is not a reliable narrator of the inner life; it often censors more than it reveals. The idea that someone’s true capability or worth can be judged by visible signs alone is not just simplistic — it is a philosophical error.
Philosophers from Plato to Descartes have grappled with this dichotomy between the physical and the mental. Descartes’ famous assertion, “Cogito, ergo sum” — “I think, therefore I am” — places being in the realm of thought, not flesh. According to this reasoning, even if our body were an illusion, our thoughts — our inner world — would still affirm our existence. The primacy of thought, memory, and internal experience over the physical is a recurring theme across intellectual traditions.
What does this mean for how we see others and ourselves? Perhaps it means we ought to look beyond bodies and toward stories. To listen more carefully. To ask what is not being said. To read silences as eloquently as speech. To allow ourselves the grace to acknowledge that we too are more than what others see. And to build a world that respects the immensity of the unseen within us all.
Ultimately, the human body is not the container of our existence — it is merely its gateway. The real expanse of who we are lies beneath, in the invisible chambers of our experience and awareness. We are all walking icebergs, visible in part, mysterious in depth. And perhaps the first act of human wisdom is to treat every body we see — including our own — not as the whole story, but as the opening sentence of a far richer, invisible novel still unfolding.