The Unbecoming
Of who we have become.
Who am I?
Can’t think of a more equally intriguing and annoying question than this.
The simplest answer to this question, as I have been recently finding out, is that who we are today is decades of becoming. And this becoming involved many ‘supposed’ truths and their many versions: Our parents’, Our teachers’, Our friends’, Our lovers’, Our intellectuals’, Our celebrities’, Our priests’ etc.
So, am I suggesting that we suddenly start doubting all of their truths and their intentions?
Nope. But just doubt their knowing.
Or, am I suggesting that we stop everything we are doing, renounce all things and people we have come to cherish; and just retreat to our supposed inner sanctum that most of us have no freaking clue about?
Nope. But just take a pause.
Every now and then, every day, and every time you need to, take a moment to realize that everything we have come to believe today might not be the truth; including our Low-carb diets, Cross-fit workouts, Hot Yoga classes, Blurry nights, D/Mating apps, Fat paychecks, Double G monikers, and even Holy Gods themselves. Abandonment is not the idea here. Giving space for doubt is — space to flourish and thrive.
Think Neo from Matrix. Or do you just want to be Mr. Anderson?
So, what do I mean by our becoming?
Take for instance, as strange as it may seem, our very idea of love — its setting and structure — could be an illusion born out of a lifetime of conditioning, both self and externally influenced; finding a partner, falling in love, staying in love, getting married, having a family, passing on a last name, and leaving behind an inheritance. Maybe love as we know it today is more confining than expansionary. Without going any deeper, I just want to say that to love truly we might have to reinvent ourselves fully. And because, presumably, the majority of us wouldn’t want to do that anyway, let us at least make peace with ourselves and our own lifetime of becoming.
You are your becoming. Just as much as they are theirs.
When we make peace with ourselves, let us do the same with people around us. After all, as much as we are, they too are an outcome of their becoming or unbecoming (albeit rarely). And it’s unfair if only one of us is allowed to find solace in our becoming and the other is condemned for theirs — regardless of how popular or less popular each one of our individual versions of becoming is. This alone, if we get it right, could positively affect relationships of all kinds.
All those decades of your becoming can’t disappear with Thanos’ snap
And, how the hell do we Unbecome?
The path to unbecoming can be long and unobvious. BUT it is not about finding or waiting to find that one all-knowing path. It is about walking the path that we have found now. And knowing that there will be many slip-ups and course corrections. Let us not hold any beliefs dearly except the belief that one day we shall unbecome. Remember what I said earlier: Abandonment is not the idea. Giving space for doubt is — space to flourish and thrive. And when that happens, denial is not the solution. After all, if doubt leads to disillusionment with everything we have previously believed in, then maybe it is an outcome we must embrace. And that which could eventually lead us to our unbecoming.
Discovering the truth will involve disowning many of your current truths.
To those who are already on the path of unbecoming, but are worried if you are digressing too much from reality, never forget that the so-called reality could be a mere illusion, born out of centuries of conditioning. There is no bigger digression than digressing from the truth. Truth is always staring at us. We are just discomforted by its gaze.
Lastly, I think that to perish is easier than to resist. And to resist is less rewarding than to persist — so long as we know what to resist and what to persist (with)…
Resist the becoming. Persist with The Unbecoming.
