Who you are becoming is more important than who you are.
I just want to be who I am without judgment, yet I used to judge myself, for not living up to who I feel that I am inside. One of many thoughts that come back again and again is that we all have an ideal self we are striving toward, and clumsily we stumble toward it, though we don’t quite make it we always grow closer. I feel like the journey, that some say life is really all about, is this constant whittling away of who we are to reveal who we are meant to be. The creation of art, is also a process. It can be a carving out, or a building up, or a combination of both. In my life, I gain possessions, friends, ideas, experiences. I also lose possessions, friends, conditioning, and naivety. This undulating force of friction is the dance of life along the edge of chaos. Usually I approach this concept of the spiraling in and spiraling out interference pattern with scientific and mathematical guidelines, but the deeper truth is something beyond reason.
Thinking back to my roots, the youth who didn’t want to be labeled, or to be constantly told who to be by the family that should have accepted her for who she was. Peers and administration in school couldn’t see the authentic person, and treated me as the person they perceived me as. To provide a specific instance I was once looked up and down, from my baggy pants to my band tee shirt and told that although it was possible to graduate high school as a junior, “you can’t do it”. After being expelled from that judgmental school and transferred to another I received Top 15 of my class four years in a row and took a number of free college classes through a program that allowed me to gain college and high school credit for them. The key ingredient there? I was given the opportunity to produce my own results, instead of being told what I could or couldn’t achieve. Decades later I dealt with bosses, coworkers, random people who told me who I am, what I can be, what I am capable of, without any notion of what I have experienced, achieved or understood. This can become disheartening. Especially for those of us who have one foot at all times into madness, the chaotic symphony that spins variation into existence.
We may have lost the tune, the rhythm, or the words of our purpose to an impeding force that resists against our groove. I do not write this to give you answers, but to share a sentiment which you might comprehend; life is also a process, one often rife with tragedy. My only encouragement is that you find a way to engage or channel the challenges that shape who you are. No one out there is their pure ideal self, we all live in animal bodies that run on hormones, instinct and conditioning. The mere fact that we are at least trying to understand and conquer ourselves is a noble goal. While there is a grand pattern, there is no grand design, no predetermined fate. There are factors, interactions, variations, possibilities and a little chaos to stir the pot.
We may not always interact as the person we think ourselves to be, especially since we do not know what the minds of others perceive. I want to provide all the same opportunity I need, without being dragged into bitterness or greed. Keep on building up the parts of you that you like, and stripping away the parts of you that you don’t. Do the same with elements of your life. So much can change in a year, a month, and sometimes even a day.
