Swimming in Liminal Spaces
A guide to being in-between
I’m Ekam — currently between things, mildly bored, and overly caffeinated — so I figured why not start sharing stuff I actually enjoy?
Before we dive into my seventh post, here’s my story in five words:
Startups. Consumer/Food. Personal Finance. Chess. Sports.
That’s the vibe. If you’re into any of those, stick around.
On May 7, 2025, I left the United States and flew back to India.
No dramatic exit. No grand plan. Just a growing feeling that I needed to leave; not to run away from something, but to make space for something new to emerge.
I didn’t have a job lined up. No startup idea ready to pitch. No business to join.
I had something else: the desire to pause and think clearly for the first time in years.
A few days after returning, I came across a term I hadn’t heard before while reading about architecture and buildings: liminal space.
In design, a liminal space is the area between things:-corridors, stairwells, airports. Spaces that aren’t destinations, but are essential for moving from one place to another.
The hallway between a hotel lobby and one’s hotel room above is an excellent example of a liminal space
And suddenly, the feeling I had been struggling to describe made sense.
I wasn’t behind. I wasn’t lost.
I was in a liminal space, between versions of myself, between countries, and between professions.
At first, the transition felt disorienting. Back in India, things are different. The conversations are more direct, more status-driven. Everyone you meet has the same opening question:
“So… what do you do?”
And in those early weeks, I didn’t have a clean answer. Saying “I’m in between things” felt strange. Awkward. Unimpressive.
But I stopped trying to impress anyone, including myself.
Eventually, I began to see that this discomfort wasn’t coming from the lack of direction. It was coming from the pressure to pretend I had one. As the days passed, I stopped forcing clarity. And in that stillness, something valuable began to unfold.
I gave myself permission to slow down. I signed up for golf lessons. Started playing tennis again. I read more than I had in months about random topics in real estate, books on how to write well, and even signed up for a LBO workshop (why not lol). I reconnected with people, had long conversations without agendas, and rediscovered what it meant to be curious without needing immediate outcomes.
This wasn’t productivity. It was presence.
And it brought an unexpected kind of clarity. Liminal space isn’t wasted time. It’s a quiet system reboot.
Over the past month, this is what I’ve learned about myself so far.
I don’t want a mono-career. I want a poly-passionate path — one that lets me explore different interests, build across domains, and return to ideas over time instead of walking away from them completely.
I work best with rhythm, not rigidity. I don’t need a 10-hour hustle schedule. I need structure that breathes and enough to keep me grounded but open enough to let new ideas in.
I no longer want to chase “busy.” I want to chase useful. I want to build things that are valuable, not just visible. Impact over optics.
And rest? It’s not a pause from work. It’s part of the work. My best thinking hasn’t come from late nights or deadline pressure but it has come from long walks, quiet mornings, and the permission to not be productive all the time.
If you’re reading this and you’re in a similar place:-maybe you’ve left a job, ended a relationship, paused a path, or simply outgrown something that used to make sense here’s what I’ve learned:
You’re not broken. You’re just in-between.
You don’t need to figure everything out right away.
You don’t need a pitch.
Enjoy this time, it might never come again
Because this space? It’s designing your next chapter, quietly.
Liminal spaces don’t show up on calendars. They don’t fit into productivity trackers. But if you use them well, they’ll reshape your perspective more deeply than any promotion ever could.
One month in, I don’t have a title. Or a business card. Or a launch plan.
But I have something better:
A clearer idea of what kind of life I want to build and how I want to feel while building it.
In the meanwhile, here I am: still swimming in my liminal space.