Identity Without Compromise

"U...Who R U?

One of the greatest curses and the deepest blessings in this flicker of consciousness between the two great voids of eternity is that we are left to define ourselves.  Every day, every moment, with almost every action.  This doesn’t seem to shake everyone.  I observe people in my own existential bubble sometimes envious of their ambivalence towards their own stories.  But I guess there’s some sort of awareness threshold that keeps the majority of the populace from becoming too caught up in (what often feels like) a Schrödinger’s box of personal reality.

That wouldn’t be too smart, biologically.  Life demands spontaneity.  Propagation of the species is impossible without a defined choice, in one way or another. Sometime in the course of the last 200 million years, as we’ve made our way from the Great Rift to the great unknown, our ability to be the orchestrators of our destinies has transformed from biology to identity.  And not simply identity but a linear evolution of identity, as it will be perceived and interpreted.  There’s a problem in this accepted and instinctually understood progression, because in our absolute most basic nature we’re simple matter.  Matter to atoms, and atoms to the subatomic.  We are but energy.  And on that subatomic level, things are neither and both particle and wave at the same moment until by observation a form is assumed.  (Think when Egon conjured the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.  A simple influence of consciousness chose a form, and energy obliged.)

I’m postulating this betrayal of quantum self as a partial explanation for the deep-rooted nihilism rampant in my generation.  We’re beginning to realize we’re not content to just call ourselves “artist” or “doctor” or “teacher”.  We know we’re much more than what we do.  Even if society necessitates we sacrifice those prismatic facets of self in the name of “responsibility” and “security” with the dangling carrot – a vision of temporary sacrifice for someday freedom – leading most to a permanent amnesia littered with might’ve-beens.

Of course this is forever entangled within the strength and persistence of our own integrity.  Integrity of identity may be one of the most important applications of the trait; without the passion to be true to one’s own self we would instantaneously leave the rest of our character open to suggestion and compromise as well.  Plus, acknowledging the innumerable strands in our tapestries will help us to remember one very important thing about other people: Everyone is wildly interesting, beyond observable means.  Beyond definable terms.

There’s something so spiritually universal in that.  Our right to our eccentricities and freedom from boxing in consciousness.

Note:  To anyone out there integriously fighting death of unique-self that comes from acceptance of the standardized submission — remember your commitment to your individuality makes you a trailblazer of esoteric levels.  For that alone, maybe you’ve won the battle.