I can’t help hearing that line in the Talking Heads song when I start to think about who I am and what is my purpose.
“This is not my beautiful House, This is not my beautiful car, and this is not my beautiful wife”
How did I get here?
Obviously I have become the person I am based on the experiences in my life. That seems simple enough but I have found that there is a twist. It seems my memories may be slightly skewed.
I’m about 4 years old and my father is very sick again. My mother packs us up and brings us to a neighbor’s apartment across the court. My mother was having a hard time holding my father up but we made into the building and into the elevator. My mother was very nervous and didn’t seem to have much patience for me. I vaguely remember being afraid. Once inside the apartment, I remember my dad laying on the couch and I was distracted by the two giant cats that lived in the apartment. The moved so differently than people. They flowed and were slinky for lack of a better word .They were huge must have been about 4 foot tall on all fours. I vaguely remember the neighbor giving my father some kind of medicine in a needle and that’s about all I can remember.
For years I held this memory of these giant cats. They must have been some kind of special breed. I forgot all about my father being sick or the lady giving him medicine to make him better. I never again got to see cats this big or knew anyone that had them. About five years ago, at the age of 46 I figured out the mystery of the giant cats. You see to a 4 year old they were giant cats. That’s the way they lived in my memory. As I got old my memories did not compensate for that fact. I just believed that giant cats were real and existed. I told myself a story in my head when I was a child and it became a fact.
If my memories and experiences define who I am, and I have just found out that my interpretation of those experience were not exactly the way it was , I may not be who I think I am. Holy crap, all this time thought I knew who and what I was only to find out I may have been mistaken about how some of the details in the events that had happened in my life.
The truth is that I have walked this earth for 50 years and for 45 of those years believed that there were giant cats. Some people doubted me but, I had seen them with my own two eyes. I was 100% percent sure that they existed and I would bet any amount of money that I was right. What we believe becomes our truth, our reality
The other thing about our beliefs is that we are convinced that what we believe is the absolute truth. All through history we are told stories about heroes that have died for their beliefs. We are told again and again about how important it is to stand for something we believe in. Yes it is very important to stand up for what you believe in. The trouble is that if you did a little investigating you may find out that what you believe is wrong. Wow! That realization has to come as a shock. It did to me.
If I was wrong about one belief it’s possible I have been wrong about others. OMG! How many others? With this realization my whole world was about to be turned upside down.