It can take a whole lifetime to become yourself —
years of feeling adrift and
alone
acting a role you were never meant to play
stammering in a language you weren’t meant to speak
wearing clothes that don’t fit
trying to pass yourself off as normal
but always feeling clumsy and unnatural
like a stranger
pretending to be at home
knowing that everyone can sense your strangeness
and resents you because they know you don’t belong.
But slowly, through years of exploration
you see landmarks that you somehow recognize
hear vague whispers that seem to make
sense
strangely familiar words, as if you had spoken them yourself
and ideas that resonate deep down, as if you already knew them.
And slowly, your confidence grows
and you walk faster, sensing the right direction
feeling the magnetic pull of
home.
And now you begin to excavate,
to peel away the layers of conditioning
to shed the skins of your flimsy, false self
to discard those habits and desires which you absorbed
until you reach the solid rock beneath
the shining molten core of you.
And now there’s no more uncertainty —
your path is clear, your course is fixed.
This bedrock of your being is so firm and stable
that there’s no need for acceptance
no fear of exclusion or
ridicule.
Everything you do is right and true
deep and whole with authenticity.
But don’t stop. This is only the halfway point —
maybe even just the beginning.
Once you’ve reached the core,
keep
exploring, but more subtly
keep excavating, but more delicately
and you’ll keep unearthing new layers, finding new depths
until you reach the point which is no point
where the core dissolves
and the solid rock melts like ice
and
the self loses its boundary
and expands to encompass the whole.
A self even stronger and more true
because it’s no self at all.
A self you had to find
so that you could lose it.
All the best, Steve
