I admit feeling quite vulnerable now: This thing called life, when truly examined … it’s difficult to describe the sense that what we thought we were, what we have been conditioned to believe as ‘our identity’, through nature and nurture both, when it begins to fall away through self examination … how utterly exposed and vulnerable it can make one feel. Especially as it feels as if we are running down time, as it speeds ever faster into infinity.
I feel compelled to write again: About the fact that the peeling away of the layers of us – all that might have served (artificial?) purposes – the ‘we must do such and such in order to ‘be a successful part of it” – is nothing short of a double edged sword.
It feels, at once, like an exciting unfolding of something new and real and original and innocent – like a return to that which we loved and were before the conditioning algorithms of ‘this is what you should be in order to be liked, worthy, successful, etc’ – but it also feels like … it’s as if the ‘knowing yourself’ thing goes hand in hand with a willful self-exclusion from everything comfortable, familiar, and reliably ‘safe’ … that one is imposing the suffering and exclusion that comes with ‘separating oneself from one’s programmed identity’, and therefore, responsible for all that follows (even if it’s something as simple as choosing not to be a part of social media … or something as complex as choosing to believe that one can heal all dis-ease within oneself, by having the courage to continually understand that one’s adopted and learned identifying parameters are NOT the definitive be all, end all of who one truly is.)
Regarding everything from how to meditate, how to eat, how to live, how to be successful, how to be happy, to social media, and regarding the possibility that we can take responsibility for ourselves, instead of existing in a kind of ‘someone else will do it; someone else must validate/see me’ mentality, the choice to not accept the parameters of impossible expectations – to be ourselves, but ‘not that way’ – ironically, brings out True Exposure of Self.
The irony has a metallic taste, and it can make us feel as if we are being pitted against ourselves. Blame, shame, game; what’s your name?
In a world obsessed with definitions and titles and appearances, who are we? Who are we when no one’s watching?
When we choose to know ourselves, truly and with stoicism, persistence, gratitude and confidence, the old conditioning fights harder to win us over. It’s voice becomes louder and more insistent: That we can’t ‘win’ at life if we choose not to ‘play’ within the impossible parameters established for us. And what kind of regular person would have the audacity to think their way of being is better than ‘the norm/popular/established way’?
Who are we when no one is watching?
What ambiguity lives in the mystery. What strength we must summon to stand up to the lies of convenience.
In short, it’s not all flowers and sunshine. Which is why I am going to go outside and absorb the flowers and sunshine prior to writing more.
Because this process … it requires a kind of confidence and fortitude which I admit, does not come easily to me. And I feel the need to apologize if I have ever made it seem as if it’s as easy as hitting an easy button.
I take comfort in having sounding boards and support. Thank you to those who feel me.
I also take comfort in the natural things because they are like I wish to be, underneath this ineffable, flowering process. They just are. They don’t even have the ability to need or ask to be anything other than what they are. The sun doesn’t care if we choose to feel its warmth on our skin, and the flowers don’t care if we see their beauty or taste their lovely aromas. To even personify such things with qualities we humans cling to .. it puts things into perspective. And as the layers peel off, we need that. Like air. Because this process .. it’s one of the most difficult things to put into words, because it’s the same and different for every single one of us.
It’s lonely bloomin’ into an only human.
Doctored Agents of Change, Dr. Strange patience yield; repeat cycle bargaining, to find more truth revealed.
Repeat pattern comforts the habit’s caress, to heal what’s been found in our own only-ness.
One. Life. As a human.
Photo Credit
Photo courtesy of Mary Rose – All Rights Reserved
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