Thinking deeply about divisive issues—matters that tend to split groups of people into camps with conflicting philosophies—often is a multi-step process for me. The first step generally leads me to a firm conclusion, placing me in accord with one of those camps. A second step retracts that conclusion and puts me in opposition to it. Further steps reveal cracks in my fealty to one idea or the other, shifting my endorsement back and forth between conflicting positions. Eventually, I may determine that neither position reflects reality. Or that both may be embedded with grains of “truth.” Confidence in my own strongly held opinions vacillates, to the point that I lose my loyalty to any of them. Or that I am committed to elements of both.
That same ambiguous certainty plagues my thoughts about myself. That is why, I think, I seem unable to ever state clearly and unequivocally who I am, at my core. I have long questioned whether I am “my own” person or whether, instead, I simply reflect a conglomeration of influences—experiences, knowledge, others’ insights and opinions, biases, ignorance, and a hodgepodge of other conditions. Perhaps I could unearth dependable, reliable answers to that question by following in the “conceptual” footsteps of Leonard Cohen, who spent five years as a monk in the Mount Baldy Zen Center, beginning when he was in his late fifties. My very modest interest in Buddhism is insufficiently deep to warrant such a bold move. And the time available to me to “retreat” myself into a more comprehensive understanding of who I am is unknown. But an “extended” period of intensive self-reflection might bring about an epiphany. How long is that, though? And wagering one’s own time on the basis of “might” or “maybe” is risky. One danger, of course, is the irretrievable loss of opportunities to experience time in other pursuits. Another danger is the possibility that an epiphany could make the first seven decades of my life seem like time wasted. But that could happen with or without any sudden insights.
This periodic visit to the question of “who am I?” can be a frustrating, tiresome exercise, especially when it repetitively leads to another aborted attempt to dig deeply into a psyche that has hidden itself for so long. Cohen spent five years exploring his understanding of himself and the world around him. I am not as complex as he; I might need only a year. Or a month. Or just a few days of focused contemplation. And, of course, the time could be wasted; no answers, no epiphany, no insights. But in the absence of taking command of that time for a specific purpose, it could simply wither…wasted, either way.
Just as important—and probably more important than pursuing an understanding of myself—is an outcome that would shift the focus from myself to the wider world. Perhaps knowing more about where we are is more vital than knowing who…because knowing more about our environment of people and places could help us understand how we might best “fit in” to improve the life experience of…life. Not just for ourselves, but for those we touch.
I’m just rambling now. Again. It’s the same subject I’ve touched on a hundred times before. And, again, the outcome is still the same—reaching a beginning with no end…a complex labyrinth with no entry and no exit. And, again, the same suspicion that accompanies the curiosity: does any of this matter, even in the slightest? In the context of the wider world, the infinitely wider universe, this entire exploration is only as wide as a minute fraction of a trillionth of the distance between two sides of a nanoparticle less than one hundred trillionth the width of a human hair that has been split into one million strands.
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My brain is in a fog and my stomach is rumbling. With every breath I take in, my chest feels like it might explode like a balloon under immense internal pressure. A slight headache (sinus-based, I suspect), elevates all the little complaints, turning a little discomfort into an enhanced torture chamber outfitted with all the tools necessary to convert the nuisance of a hangnail into an excruciatingly painful experience, like attempting to escape the butcher’s knives while crawling naked over burning razor-sharp shards of white-hot glass. Simply an opportunity to complain about a single mosquito bite to a thousand strangers whose entrails spill from wounds cause by rusted sabers coated in mud from a pool of stagnant water. An exaggeration, of course. I am just a little more fatigued than usual.
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Rage and compassion cycle through me so fast that I am not sure which is which. But I could forgive everyone for everything if we all would simply stop behaving and thinking like demonic beasts. I might even forgive myself for whoever I was and who I have become. Forgive the carnage; we thought the detonator had been deactivated.
