You are you
For some time now the blog has been discussing personal identity. It is Question #2, which is:
“Who am I?”
The answer is quite simple. The greatest spiritual truths are simple. You are you. You are not anyone else. You are you.
The problem is that we can’t seem to leave that alone. That isn’t enough of an answer. People take on identities like clothes in a fridgid climate. There are layers for warmth, layers for protection from the elements and layers for fashion to make us look good.
“Who am I?” is the question which drives our behaviors. This is true for us as individuals, as well as for collectives such as teams at work, sports teams, or even social organizations like your local Rotary club. This question also drives the various silos of identity that create boundaries in society.
Social status is all about how we identify to the world around us. Children play with imagination as to who they would like to be. They play with dolls, build roadways in the dirt, and later play video games, taking on the role of a virtual hero trying to save the princess. Later they become students, competing at things like sports, spelling bees, musical auditions in band class, or grades trying to get into the “right college.” Some of the most mean and heartless people you’ll ever meet are children.
One of the things that struck me as I was graduating from high school was that life was no longer on automatic pilot. As a child, my life was programmed to go to school, do homework and play with my friends. Every school year came to an end, followed by some weeks of freedom, to be followed by another school year. One year after another, but eventually, the school years ran out and after 12th grade, there was no more school. There was no more life on automatic pilot. The rest was now up to me. Not a scary thought, but certainly unsettling.
Young adulthood brings a whole new pile of challenges. The time of free food and lodging were soon to come to an end. The competition gets much harder in school, in jobs, and especially in your love life. The ego gets banged and bruised constantly. It was bad enough in my own youth. Today we have social media that reminds young people, 24/7, that they aren’t good enough and could be doing better.
Like the layers of clothing in frigid weather, we take on identities about our jobs, our personal interests and passions, our ambitions and our relationships.
It’s pretty typical in social situations that when people meet, one of the first questions asked is what their profession is. We naturally size each other up. Now instead of asking, “Who am I?” We’re asking, “Who are you?” These questions challenge us, and the consequence of being challenged is that we automatically feel the need to stand up to it.
There is an enormous personal investment to get trained and qualified to work at a profession that pays enough to make a living. People ask where you are from or about the social network through which you made your connection. Small talk ensues as you look for common ground based upon interests and identities. You want to know who they are, and they want to know who you are. But all you really get is some of the identity layers you each wear.
At some level, all that is happening is trying to create a sense of where we stand in relationship to the others we are meeting. Is this new person a threat? Is there something I can get from them that would benefit me? Sometimes a person’s sense of identity and status is so dependent on their profession that they create boundaries to keep others out, and also keep themselves in.
The more this happens, the further we get away from who we are at birth. The closer we get to end-of-life, the more of these layers that we shed. I meet hospice patients who are so feeble, they cannot even hold a conversation, let alone operate their motorized bed to get more comfortable. Someone like that has long shed their identities of profession, hobby, or political persuasion. They’re so very tired. They are simply who they are.
In the end, and in the beginning, you are just you.
More than one spiritual teaching admonishes us to give up ego. The first thing that pops into my mind upon seeing the word “ego” in this context is vanity. There’s certainly enough ego and vanity being shown in the world. We all have an ego. But the ask to give up ego isn’t really a demand to give up vanity and be humble. It’s really all about choosing to be and live as your most true self. It is simply about you being you, without all the other layers and layers of identity.
A newborn has no vanity. It also has no investment in its future other than wanting its next meal and exploring the new world about it. As a newborn, you are you.
This state of you just being you has no age. A small child is ignorant of so much in the world, including things which are hazardous. But that small child wants the freedom to do as it wants and never considers that it isn’t old enough or ready. It just wants what it wants. It is who it is.
A young adult is working to make their way in the world. At the peak of their physical strength, endurance and health, they may feel unstoppable. 30 to 50 years later, they remember that feeling, but the essense of who they are hasn’t changed. It’s their bodies that have degraded, not their sense of who they are. The only way an old person feels old is when their bodies can’t do what they used to do.
The thing which is you – the you at birth, the you at end-of-life, and the you that is in-between, is something which does not identify with age. This you has the quality of immortality.
One of the symbols on my stole is a raised hand with a labyrinth inside of it. For me, it symbolizes a welcome to mystery. All mysteries have clues and we must pay attention and find them for ourselves. It is not enough to just ask the question, “Who am I?” You also have to do the work to find your own answers.
I write my blog for those who prefer to find and know spirituality on their own terms, without the demands from any religion. I write because I feel called to speak equally to both the heart and the mind, because neither love nor rationality has to supplant the other.
If what I write speaks to you, please subscribe to my blog and share it with others. I’m not doing this for the money, but because I feel that the what I am saying, in the way I am saying it, needs to be heard. This blog will always be without charge.
I feel that spirituality has to help us in our daily lives, otherwise it’s just so much window dressing and posturing. It should be applied to the most difficult subjects.
I’ve been writing weekly since February 2022 and have covered many subjects in that time. If you’re a new reader of this blog, you can find all of them at the main blog page.