Who am I?
When I drop all of my stories about who I am. Who am I at my most basic level? I have been looking at this question to see what arises.
I feel that mostly "who I am" is a mental projection. It's a drama about my struggles with life, and just how important these struggles are. There are problems in life, then there's the person who suffers these problems.
The story goes that the sufferer is me. That's the story, but is this just another assumption? There is a sense that I am this person, but also a sense that I am not this person. There is some sense of me watching the story and the sufferer, removed.
I am here getting third personal, talking about the person I sometimes believe to be me. Can that person really be me if I am already so outside of him?
The Person
It has taken me a life time to craft all of these stories about who I am. Stories which paint me as the hero (preferably), yet sometimes as the villain. When I believe I am the hero I feel greater than these other peasants, and when I am the villain I feel that I am worth less.
I have made these stories my self - with great care but also completely unconsciously. These scripts have been written as a reaction or a defense mechanism, forever shielding me against the raw brutality of life. It's living through these stories that I have come to associate with life. I have come to associate life with what my mind has to say about it. I am the story, I am in the game.
Is this really my life though? Could I just step right out of these loops and hoops?
Rare Moments
"yes, no"
"good, bad"
"happy, sad"
My experience says that this voice is not always in play - it is not a necessary component.
There are moments of stillness - no comment from the mind. These moments feel complete, they feel open.
I crave these moments, whoever I am that craves things. I crave the still silence of sitting and staring. I love to listen and watch, and to soak it all in. Taking time to just be, with no reason or deadline. No objective or goal, no striver striving.
Conflict
When I have a problem with someone, I ask myself - who is it that has this problem? And then I look inside for the person who is holding the problem.
In my experience it can be hard to let go of that bone, because the tendency is to hold on. Resistance.
Being right is quite important 'in my mind', it seems like everything gets organised around the story which makes me right.
Under close scrutiny the tenacious dog backs down for a minute - yielding some surprising revelations.
More often than not I can't seem to find myself. I'm looking for the person with the problem, and there's not much to show for it.
I don't know who I am
I don't know what I am
Starting again from there - what was my problem again?
The Stage
Who is this voice that comments on my situation?
Who is the doubter?
Who is the proud aggressor who takes on a confident tone?
Many performers take the stage, at the end of the day - curtains closed.
I'm experiencing all of these things, in a life that I call my own. Who is it that owns my life? It's funny to think that I own my own life. What was the price that I paid for this life? Surely it was an immeasurable sum.
I am living out so many assumptions. I seem to need these to exist.
Yet when I get home and drop the charade, the show goes on. This life keeps happening for me to see, regardless of my investment in it. It goes on regardless of the seriousness with which I take myself.
Who are you?
I really can't say
Because that is entirely for you to ask, to feel and to see on your own.