I remember a friend of mine mentioning recently in an email about how important it is for him to be himself, and to not be his not self, or whatever it was he was trying to say to me. And I can't say that I got exactly what he was on about but I think I have a rough idea. And that got me thinking. I have long been credited as a person who is not ashamed of or afraid of being himself. Well, fair enough, I suppose. But I have also been thinking lately of how unimportant that concept of self, individual self, being oneself, is to me. I never really think in terms of myself. I'm not ure that I ever have. that this is me, this is not me. That was me in 1975, but it certainly wasn't me in 1982 but it could again be me next year sometime. This could be me, maybe not, but, really, I don't know. And you know something else, Gentle Reader? I really don't care.
I don't really think of myself much. There isn't really that much to me outside of the usual smoke and mirrors we all tend to carry with us. Sure, some people might find me interesting, and I suppose to an old bad-ass like me, that is kind of flattering, but I think that I would rather think about God, instead of me. I would rather think about other people, instead of me. I would rather think about nature, instead of me. I would rather think about beauty. I would rather think about art. And rather than just think of these things, to simply enjoy and celebrate them. So then, who am I, or what am I? Well, who are you? What are you? Who are we? What are we? My self is not really all that very important. Maybe if I were a narcissist, and then certainly to my own precious self, my precious self would be...well..., incalculably precious. But I find narcissists both pathetic and lethal And wearing to be around. And self-adulation is simply not a socially safe or desirable practice to indulge in. It could make you go blind. And it's bad for our skin.
There are things, of course, that we do need to know about ourselves: our emotional makeup, our intelligence, our physical capacities, the state of our health, mental as well as physical, our spirituality. the influences of our family, whether the gene pool that helped form us needs to be chlorinated or not. Our vulnerabilities, how we react under stress, how we relate to others, what kind of people set us off.
We also need to have values, know what they are and why we have them. Also if we are open to examining or challenging our values, or our reasons for having them. Do we believe what we believe in because that's what our moms and dads believed in, or is it a social and cultural construct that we simply absorbed with our mothers' milk, or are those things that we truly and sincerely believe in, and if so, why?
But this is all structuring and scaffolding, and none of it touches on the whole unfathomable mystery of who we really are. I had this interesting conversation with one of my friends in Colombia about why I a reluctant to put a lot of energy into marketing and promoting my art. I have had quite a few setbacks with arrogant, unreliable and sometimes completely untrustworthy brokers when showing my paintings in public places, and going online with my art is something so huge and complicated and vast and complex that I simply get sweaty and nervous just thinking about it. I nearly fell back on my other friend's excuse, that I simply would be being not me for me to engage too eagerly into marketing my art. But since my conversation with my Colombian friend I hae been having to question and challenge that particular version of me that I have come to believe in s true.
The human self is way more fluid and changeable than many would care to believe. But I really like the Dalai Lama's take on the human self, which is that we only really truly become our true selves when we are in the act of compassion and having love and care for one another.
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