Its crazy that my happy place in the back of my van by myself writing. I always thought my happy place would be with money or woman or ina bar. I thought my happy place would of consisted of people and things. It consists of me, ina van, alone. The other day in yoga class, at the beginning we were laying on the mat and the teacher was asking us to recite “I am” on the inhale and a verb on the exhale. It was to be who we saw ourselves as, my verb was “nobody”. Inhale “I am” exhale “nobody”. It sounded so sad as I did it yet it did not feel sad, it felt right, it felt true. Obviously someone would think, “there is something wrong with this person if that is how they see themselves”, but is there anything really wrong with that concept of self?
So much of our self is shrouded in ego, always having to be someone and with that someone comes a judgement, comes an opinion. If you are nobody what opinion or judgement do you have? There is no “I” so there can be nothing said about anything. It removes you from so many situations, so many demands from life. It simplifies my life, it makes it pure and selfless. I think about how I am ever going to write with no opinion and only thought. How am I’m going to write true ideas that weren’t given to me throughout my life. The world molded me and had me believing everything it thought I needed to be. My peers, my parents, they pushed me into nooks and crannies I didn’t really want to be in. I am not a victim but I was lost most my life, needing direction and comfort from existence. Everything and everyone took hold of that and started to mold me, not emotionally or mentally but geographically in my ideas of how life should be existed upon.
I volunteered, I polled the masses, I asked the questions, I didn’t trust my ideas, my thoughts, I formed opinions cause I was given so many. I was informed that I needed to make these decisions or what’s right and wrong, what’s good and bad. Who I am, who I want to be, where I want to be. All the time building my ego into making the statement that defines me. For if I was no one my entire life, if I was unable to tell you all my story, put my name on it and declare my presence, then who would I be? If I am not my name do I have no definition and if I have no definition can I really define anything else? Can I give an opinion, cast a judgement? All the while pigeon holing myself into something that someone else taught me, something I learned from tv, from my parents, my peers.
Then needing to be someone, to define myself creating so much insecurity of self. I need to be, just like everyone else, I need to level up to them, I need to catch them and be them, I need to define myself, declare myself, I need to be loud and heard, I need to be heard, known. I need to be Jacob and you need to know me so I can be. All the while creating insecurity, doubt, fear, judgement of self. The struggle, the race, the trudge of getting to that place of “being” only to create a lifetime of fear and doubt. Back to polling the masses, asking the questions, “Is this right or wrong? You think I can do this? Be this? Feel this, think this, know this?”
So I laid there, inhaling I am and exhaling nobody. I didn’t need to be, I didn’t want to be, I only needed to exist in that moment, free from everything that has a molecular structure, free from thought, opinion, judgement. Free from defining myself and in turn free from fear, from existing. I’ve no idea who I am anymore. I can say I’m a dad, but only in the moments I am needed as one. In name I will always be one but at this moment am I being one? I can say I’m a painter, but is that who I am? I know what your thinking, not one thing can define us, we are all many things, many ideas, many concepts, you are you. Right? That’s the go to, you are you. You are remarkable and smart and kind and loving and swift and clean and desirable. Give me more to define me, tell me more about myself so I can be someone cause everyone is striving to be someone and that will give me worth, that will give me happiness, it will define me and my existence. But I can only be these things in moments. When I am rude and self centered am I desirable? When I make poor choices am I smart? What if we stripped it all away. Left it with just you and nothing that defines you. Where are your options now, what do they matter? What will you judge on, there is no self. What if you walked around for a day or a week and saw yourself as nobody. Could you do it and be happy?
My happiness is being alone in my van writing, its riding my mountain bike in the hills, it’s driving cross country, camping on the middle of nowhere, it’s helping others without anyone knowing. I strive to not be defined, to not be known, to receive no accolades, to give no opinion, no judgement. It’s not easy, my ego still wants recognition, it wants worth, it wants to be, but those are just false feelings, those only create low self esteem and low self worth cause I need to measure up constantly to what I have been defined as.
So where do you sit? When you are laying there, on the mat, in your bed, in your mind. Does your ego strive to be defined so you have something to grasp onto? Something to make you feel whole, feel pretty? My whole life I wanted to be pretty, attractive, but I was far to ugly to achieve this. I would watch everyone around me build their persona, their ego, create themselves into something great and I would watch and wonder how they did it. How they got everyone around them to believe, how they got themselves to believe. I always knew we were all nothing, nothing special, nothing different, all striving to find happiness and going about it all wrong…
How do you go about it.
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