The Death-Grip of Identity

I suspect that everything I do is designed, consciously or unconsciously, to drive me further toward the edge of my limits. The need to step out of boundaries seems to be instinctual to me, which is strange since Dolly has cushioned herself in a small town, in her home, with familiar people, objects and routine her whole life. My father Calvin did the same, however unhappily. Where does the rebellion gene come from? How did I become the restless one, never satisfied?

Who were you when you were 10 years old? Were you a friendly kid? A bit hyper perhaps, maybe scared of the dark? Did you love your mom and did you joyfully ride your bike, celebrating every road burn? Were you scared of your dad? Were you bold and expansive? Were you open and unafraid? What did you look like?

Look at you now. The strengths, the potential, the potency of that 10-year-old kid, were they encouraged, facilitated, appreciated by those around you, and were you allowed to become your best self? Are you a confident self-actuated person?

Does it matter? We are what we are. Our little successes, failures, worries, desires, death-grip on the identity that we have inherited, or created, or stumbled-into. Stoned. There's not a hair's breadth difference between the seemingly huge "successes" of a Brad Pitt and your daily ups and downs. His money? Probably from bad karma, a stumbling block, a worry, the opposite of what it seems. Again I am reminded of something I heard once...there are hundreds of Brad Pitts out there, just as good looking and just as talented. They just aren't famous.

I must tell Mallory. There is a place that is calling me, another level where I must go. Can she help me get there? I don't know. It has to do with identity, and how it is formed... how it is lost. It has to do with the ways we negotiate a persona, the wearing of masks, the search for freedom and transcendence of the self. The desire for a grounded self when there is no "self".

"I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together"
John Lennon
October 9, 1940 - December 8, 1980

goo goo g'joob