SENSIBILITIES

October 16th, 2025

Lately, I’ve had a shift in perspectives (thank you 9H Uranus transit!). 

I've been trying very hard lately to pinpoint my values - traversing different realms, walking in and out of creative spaces after being ejected from them, cowering back into my shell after failing to penetrate another person's inner world, etc. I haven't been very successful and namely, I've realizing that my values are quite messy.

As of yesterday, I can't help but I wonder if what I should be narrowing down are my sensibilities. 

I'm struggling to articulate the difference, but I sense that sensibilities are much more intrinsic than values are. Our sensibilities are as intrinsic and random as our temperaments. They can be named, but really they are felt. Sensibility is kind of like..a frequency or an essence. We don't choose them, but rather, we are chosen by them. 

Values, for instance, are largely the result of social conditioning. They're apt to change, they're not a very good guide because they are malleable and thus easily corrupted. 

I do think there's some overlap, because a lot of times, our sensibilities drive us towards certain people, places, frameworks, etc. which then shape our value system - which is how you end up in spaces where your values perfectly align with those around you - because you all happen to share the same essence and the synergy molds your behavior and thus your value system. 

I’ve been thinking about what it would mean or look like to pursue connection with people who share my sensibilities rather than my “values” (which don't always come from a clean and orderly place).

I’m mapping out what my sensibilities actually are and how they don’t really align with my values at all which is interesting. I’m also realizing that my value system sometimes inhibits connection with people that share my sensibilities because our signals and feelers can be so totally different in reality.

My “values” are malleable, they’re often conglomeration of the people around me, and the things I’ve been conditioned to find “valuable” - they’re permeable and for that reason, not a true measure of me.

I guess as of late, I'm learning that shared values aren't a true measure of compatibility. The people and things I've "valued" have been horrible for me! (and to me) and I pressed the issue by telling myself that I needed to try different strategies, work things out in a different way, etc. and it never really worked. I'm learning not to feel ashamed of my temperament and sensibilities, because the very few people who have shared them have been wonderful human beings who have brightened my life in unimaginable ways. 

I'm learning that resonance is the truest and most basic law of connection. Perhaps that's where I've been wrong in the past - not relying on my sensibility to determine resonance. And it's tough because lately I've been walking away from things and people that felt like they had the potential to be really good for me (that I wanted to imagine were good for me) but in turn, actually gutted me from the inside out. 

I'm learning to renounce my vanity, my self-criticism, my fear of vulnerability, and so on because I understand now. 

I'm still working out this framework, but I truly believe it goes:

Temperament → Sensibility → Resonance → Value Alignment → and so on

This is all I have for right now, I guess I feel better with the understanding that it's not necessary for me to contort myself into odd shapes because when you're just cut from the same cloth (there's a sensibility match) it just comes naturally. Effortlessly. 

I am getting hope more than despair as of late and that's very refreshing. 

- vetiveroil