So, once again, I find myself presented with what I can only describe as a “quandary”, one I neither asked for nor expected. As readers may know, I often ramble about how the world offers me lessons, each posing a question and an avenue for introspection… my favourite kind of avenue. Well, guess what? Not one to be called a creature of habit, I’ve landed in this curious position again. “How did you get here?” I hear you ask, “Inconveniently” my reply.
It was in the early hours of a Monday morning, me, blissfully unaware of what lay ahead. You see my introspective journey was sparked by a stone at a bus stop, yes you heard me right, a stone. No, I’m not going mad, nor was I “stoned” at a bus stop. I was simply listening to a podcast, sipping tepid coffee from an overpriced, virtue-signalling Starbucks reusable cup.
There is one thing that I have recently noticed and that is the rise of local, independently run social communities, this I feel is tied to the surge in social media and the connectivity of the mini pocket computers we once called phones.
Personally, I was an early adopter of this tech, and if I’m honest, possibly a heavy consumer of certain platforms. This mainly due to my quirky mission to flood the internet with psychotherapy-themed mammoth photos (yes, I know how that sounds), I’m still amazed by the weird ways people express themselves. Sometimes, these ideas stop me in my tracks and make me think… you see for all the negativity out there on the “world wide web” there are some wonderfully crazy little ideas that I’m glad were given a space to evolve.
How does this tie to a cold coffee and a rock? Well as it turns out, I’d stumbled into a global craze. This all started in 2015 with the Kindness Rocks Project, when Megan Murphy began painting pebbles to spread joy on a Cape Cod beach. This starting out small, has exploded into thousands of groups worldwide, from the U.S. to Australia, with a surge during the COVID-19 pandemic as people craved creative connection (see chart below). Strangers paint stones, hide them, and share their locations on social media, inviting finders to keep or re-hide them, creating a chain of kindness documented in local Facebook groups.
Growth of Painted Rock Hiding Communities (2015-2025)]
The painted rock trend, sparked by the Kindness Rocks Project in 2015, has grown exponentially, with thousands of communities worldwide joining the movement by 2025.
Adjacent to the bus stop, dilapidated railings are lined with native bushes and brambles, a space mostly free from human touch. Imagine my surprise when my wavering gaze landed on a rock, just out of reach through the railings.
For clarity there were numerous rocks, however this one stood out for the simple fact that I noticed something written on it. Perhaps a local youth’s representation of art and identity, or a scorned lover’s jab meant for a passing car? Whatever it was my curiosity spiked, and I couldn’t rest without investigating. Before I knew it, I was wielding a stick like a primate in a tool-use study, much to the delight of commuters and rather amusingly, the confusion of a dog walker, there I was, down on one knee, star fished through rusty railings at six in the morning.
I half-expected to find “gotcha” or something ruder, followed by laughter and twitching curtains from the house opposite. Instead, pleasantly, my anxiety turned to delight as I fumbled the rock through the bars and read “pic on bank” and “please keep or re-hide.” Little did I know this humble stone was to became more than a rock, it would turn into a question, a journey of self-discovery, a… okay, maybe not life-changing, but it sparked a few weeks of introspection and self-imposed responsibility. I may even go as far as saying it offered a glimpse into my inner workings, and naturally, I had to write about it.
I can hear the scepticism: “A life-changing stone? Does this kid think he’s got Excalibur?” Not quite, but it felt like a quest and quite honestly, I strongly believe in looking for the lessons often offered to us by experiences that often remain hidden in the chaos, and that sort of sounds quest like. For me this lack of educating ourselves doesn’t fall to ignorance, but more cognitive function.
Our existence seems so full today with all the comings and goings of life, that when the universe offers up a little chance for us to explore our observations in a detailed way and examine what that experience means to our authentic self, we lose the sound of our own feelings, thoughts and expressions in that noise. The answer to this is simple yet takes discipline, for me this is a skill that came later into my mid-thirties, and one I feel would benefit all individuals on a grand scale. Stop, observe, listen to yourself, and most importantly trust in it… simple, yet how many of us can honestly say it’s something we implement?
Back to my stone, well upon inspection and frankly rotation, in that I mean when I turned the stone round, it revealed a beautifully hand-painted sun. With yellows and oranges radiating from a sunglass-wearing, smiling face placed pleasantly in the centre. I felt silly for suspecting tricksters or delinquent youths, yet this eased in reflecting on the kind of tricks (mainly gluing pound coins to the floor) we played as kids at the same bus stop. I admired the stone’s glory for a while until the bus’s air brakes snapped me back, to which I juggled my bag, coffee, headphones, and now this micro-artwork in attempt to pay the driver. Settling into my seat, I couldn’t take my eyes off it, for some reason this little stone had spoken to me and in a way that could never of been expected. Who painted it? What was their intention? The early summer sun reflected its vibrant hues as the filtered through the window stirring my thoughts and sparking my imagination.
Unbeknownst to me at the time, this craze had reached our humble little parish, and I had inevitably found myself inserted right into the middle of it. The rules simple: Decorate a stone, hide it, and share its location online. Then for the roll of a seeker, my current position: to find, keep, or re-hide, all tracked via local Facebook groups. At first, I thought it’d be a simple choice: keep it or re-hide it after a day’s chatter, I hadn’t considered joining the game. This for a few reasons, firstly as I lack the capacity to follow local groups enough to do it justice, but more so if I’m honest it felt burdensome. You see this instantly offered a decision, something we tend to try and avoid at all costs, and yet in this moment I felt like my hand was being forced. I certainly did not expect to be sent on a reflective journey that would have me not only question my own ethics but also explore the whole concepts behind why humans attach value to stones and other inanimate objects, a process called “commodification”, as I have come to learn over recent weeks.
Yet a week later, the little sun was still sat on my desk, myself, caught in conflict over what to do. I’d grown attached, it made me smile, felt warm, even nostalgic and the thought of it making its way my stepson’s middle shelf, nestled between decorative skulls and 3D-printed beasts. The middle shelf you see is brimming with rocks that’d impress any pre-teen geologist, it feels almost like a natural home for this gem. I could even simply place it there and say nothing, thus offering my own humours, yet very nuanced slant to the game.
Giving it to him would let us both keep it, easing my burden, but my selfish intentions kept it on my desk, quiet and out of place. Days passed, the stone drifting in and out of my eyeline during long writing sessions. Between the deadlines, I’d pause, gaze at it, and reflect on the instant gratification of finding it, my mind toggling between keeping it or re-hiding it, only to push the thought aside to be lost beneath that noise once again.
Three days in, stuck on an essay, this partly due to an infantile wager with a peer to weave Greek references into our work, I noticed the stone in a new way. Aristotle’s words seemed to fit,
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit” (350 BCE).
the stone’s creator had unwittingly taught me something, and its within that lesson my quandary’s felt lighter. You see what I had come to recognise was indeed something rather profound, simple, and not to dissimilar to the game itself. As I rotated the stone, its rays catching the light, I felt the joy of that first morning, the warm smile of its symbolism and the fleeting embarrassment imagining residents judging me. I recognised the conversations it sparked, internally, as well as externally. Why hide a painted stone? who had painted it? what was I going to do with it? Once again I was focusing on the aesthetic, yet the beauty had actually sat within the intention in the stranger’s vulnerable act of sharing a piece of themselves, trusting another to receive it.
Here is the funny thing in all of this, I personally, as I write this do not know, and most likely will never know the artists reason, or indeed feelings behind this little masterpiece. In fact, that in my eyes is irrelevant. The magic this stone holds sits within the intention itself, for me you see this it what sparked the internal dialogue, which in turn has resulted in the writing of this post. This little pebble has not only reaffirmed my belief that we must seek to both look at everything the universe offers as a lesson, but to also look past the projected message in order to find an authentic intention.
For me the artist set out with good intentions, whatever they may be, projected it into the world and offered something beautiful and vulnerable all in the same package. This something we are all forced to tackle in life, and much like my earlier quandary’s it often feels like our hands are tied. By giving ourselves time, space, and quite frankly trust, to evaluate these hurdles we allow ourselves chance to breath. Just like our artist, we don’t ever know how these will be received, which brings about all sorts of fears. Yet, once again referencing our artist, providing our intentions are pure to ourselves, nothing else matters.
As for the game, well I welcome it if I’m completely honest! In fact I welcome any thing that connects people in and encourages the sharing of creativity, this being the perfect platform for this. The artist, I recognise a familiarity as I myself do to create my own expressions, the difference being mine in a written format, all with the use of a pseudonym to possibly hide my own vulnerabilities. Yet, always delivered through good intention.
Just like that, it suddenly felt as if my time in the game had come to an end. It almost felt wrong to keep this little stone sat at my desk, or even on a shelf for that matter. In the spirit of the game I decided that the responsibility I had thought as a burden was indeed a gift. A gift in the form of a lesson, an insight to myself, and one that I was only right to share. Unwilling to simply discard my stone back behind a bush and wanting to add my own creative ideas to the mix I decided to re-hide it, but with a twist. I write this having just returned from the annual family holiday, a welcomed break on the island of Gran Canaria. Blessed with clear skies and temperatures in the high twenties, a fitting stage for the stone’s next chapter. Situated outside of the grounds of our hotel was a public space, similar to a small village park. Psalm trees offering little shade to the volcanic foundations that the islands are famous for. Its at the base of one of these trees, sat discreetly amongst the joining pebbles our little friend sits. This stones part in my story is finished and complete, my part in its only detailed here in this written memory. Who knows where it will end up, will its journey continue on, or will it come to an abrupt stop, a product of admiration. What I do know is that where ever it ends up, its intentions are good, and it will be sure to spark a conversation.
Adiós, Amigos.
