It can take a whole life time to become yourself
years of feeling adrift and alone
trying to be someone you could never be
wearing clothes that don’t fit you
stammering in a language you weren’t meant to speak
trying to pass yourself off as normal
but always feeling clumsy and unnatural
like a stranger pretending to be at home
and knowing that everyone can sense your strangeness and
resents you because 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
ideas that resonate deep down, as if you already knew them
and slowly, your confidence grows,
and you walk faster, now you sense the right direction
and feel 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,
and this bedrock of your being is so solid and stable
that there’s no need for acceptance or belonging
no fear of exclusion or ridicule
and everything you is right and true
and deep and whole with authenticity.
But don’t stop. This is only the half way 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.
