These days, I find myself in a reflective frame of mind quite often.
In a sense, it makes me happy: After four years and two months of blogging on Hive, I seem to have managed to finally get back to the free-flowing mindwalks that started when my first blog saw the light of day in 1999.
It was called "Shades of Grey" (no connection; the blog was 13 years BEFORE the book) and started as an exploration/lament regarding the seemingly willful cruelty of so many people and the greater world we live in.
Perhaps it was ironic that I was asking in 1999 the same questions I asked when I was five: "why are people so MEAN to each other?"
Perhaps it's ironic that I am still asking that question.
And you'd think I'd have found some sort of answer by now... but I haven't.
I can't help but think that the findings of my pervasive quest to answer that question — and perhaps do something about it — is what gradually drove me towards an increasingly solitary and reclusive existence.
Don't misunderstand, though. I have spent much of my life in very public situations, including 13 years in the sales, marketing and advertising field, a stint in the IT industry and most recently as shopkeeper in a busy tourist town.
Yes, one can be solitary, even in an extremely loud and crowded situation.
I have pretty much always been a solitary type person. With the exception of a period of pretty near total social dysfunction, I am simply solitary by choice. Not because I fear people, not because I feel socially inept, not because I am shy... but because I simply prefer my own company over that of most other people.
In part, that holds true simply because I am an introvert by nature... but I also have a limited amount of emotional/mental energy to give to the many people around whom it feels like our beings are competing rather than connecting and interacting. I do not enjoy continual debate, sparring, positioning for "territory" and all that other stuff that seems so important to many humans.
So, with very few exceptions, I choose to be solitary... because I prefer my own company over most people's.
I have never feared being alone with my thoughts and my (emotionally) "naked" self. Aloneness is welcoming, not scary. In solitude, I find a profound sense of peace.
In my years on this planet, I have met maybe four people who understood that "being solitary, together" is an actual thing.
These are the people with whom we feel a profound connection and affinity, and because of the way we love each other there's nothing "awkward" about our very long silences... together. Although, during these times, we feel perhaps closer than most people could fathom.
You either "get" what that means, or it would require an explanation so long the Hive maximum block length for a post would be exceeded.
Anyway, the title of this post hints at where my thoughts are at the moment, along with much of the explanation behind my solitude; I am who I am in solitude because then I am no longer "too busy" to be who I am.
I remember being at a self-actualization retreat circa 2003 and one of the exercises early in the workshops was drilling down to determine who we REALLY were.
This turned out to be a considerably challenge for most people present because they were so strongly identified with being "men" or "lawyers" or "Americans" or "Asian" or "Mothers" and would get stuck at what the facilitator called the "descriptive layer" of self-identification.
It took me about three iterations of self-inquiry and 90 seconds to establish that I am STILLNESS.
Of course, that has always begged the follow-up question "Yeah, and what's that GOOD for?" because we live in a world where we are more concerned with what we DO and what we HAVE than who we ARE... and yet those surface layers tend to be precisely what get in the way of connecting deeply and intimately with each other.
In a world primarily concerned with DOING and HAVING I am not sure what "Stillness" is good for and it's yet another of life's questions I answer a little bit, every day. I am also not sure what "Stillness" is good for, in a world that mostly rewards the loud, the brash, the outspoken. But that's neither here nor there.
Meanwhile, with each day that passes, I find myself less and less willing to "put on a facade" in order to NOT be who I am, purely in service of being able to functionally interface with a world I seldom relate to.
Ironic, isn't it? The quiet idealists and dreamers are both admired and loathed and despised, in the same breath!
In the interest of transparency, I can't take credit for the bones of the idea behind this post... it came from my "therapy days" in the early 1990s... when my therapist once asked me "Who would you BE, if you weren't always busy looking after and trying to be all those things for all those people around you?"
At the time, I thought it was a bit of a joke, but she was serious. And the truth is that many people keep themselves too busy minding everyone else's business, feelings, needs, foibles, worries to actually be themselves.
It may feel somewhat "noble" and selfless for a while... but in time it becomes a shit life and you gradually lose yourself to self-forgetting.
Don't do that. No matter how much you want to sacrifice yourself on the altar of altruistic self-lessness.
Thanks for reading, and have a great week!
How about YOU? Who would YOU be, if you weren't too busy? Or aren't you that busy? Have you ever had an issue with "self-forgetting" as a result of excessive "being of service?" How did you move past it? Or haven't you? Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!
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Created at 20210322 00:41 PDT
0219/1462