Somehow this thought had reoccurred to me today.
The thought that I only know myself in comparison to
others. That because someone else is
tall, I am small, that because they are mean, I am nice, or that because
they’re nice, I’m a bitch, and because I think they’re stupid, I must be smart.
The thought of me
only knowing myself as a comparative element in an equation really set me up
for a shit realization. That by the very
nature of playing comparisons, I immediately set me up for a me vs them
paradigm.
Yes if it’s a me vs you situation, I can find false comfort
in my being superior to the other in that moment. Some of that survivalist king
of the jungle chromosome. Needing to see how we rank.
And many of us have already discovered that this bullshit survival
technique is old paradigm and that we must really come to understand that we
are all one…Yes. We.Are.All.One. …That very banal, and vague but deep as you want
to imply that it is, statement that’s infiltrated our culture more than the
local Starbucks.
But yes, we accept, sure we are all one. I don’t totally get
it, but I do, but I don’t, but I do.
So I’m sitting here thinking, that if I don’t need to prove
to myself that I’m King of the Jungle, by evidence of these elementary life
quizzes, then I don’t need to play
comparisons, but without those comparisons…what’s left of me? Who am I?
And then it dawns on me.
“Oh NOOOO!” Not this
again! Not the existential question of “Who
am I?!” WTF! I thought I grew out of this stage. I thought I came up with
plenty of really good answers along the lines of me being what I create myself
to be, what I say I am in the present, and not a self to discover or find, but
a self to be carved. Who am I?!?! I am enraged that this question should come
back. It’s so 90’s.
Time to take a step back and laugh at myself all over again.
