14 Feb 2002 @ 22:27, by Andy Lehman
Note to reader: this might strike some people as unduly nihilistic in parts; trust me, it’s not : ) .
Recently I’ve been pondering over how I might go about showing the “real” me to people who I think I can really trust. You know, the me that truly motivates the way I think and feel, and not the social construct whose only concern is to be normal and sociable. It may or may not be a noble goal; it might just be a variety of narcissism.
Whatever the case, I ran into a fundamental problem. I, like many people (most I dare say) have no idea who or what the REAL me is. I want to be genuine, but there are so many little versions of me inside my head I have no idea which one is the real one, or if it even boils down to a single real me at all.
With this mass of confusion in place, I was ready to start my expedition. I spent what could have been minutes, hours, or millennia conversing with the ceiling of my dorm room, trying to come to a consensus about me. We journeyed through the lands of good and evil, beauty and the beast, all kinds of places. It was quite a ride. Long story short, we ended up at a place that was almost too simple to be meaningful.
The me that ended up standing out from the mental crowd had quite a bit to say. His primary goal was simple: to evolve. He just wants to explore this amazing phenomenon we call consciousness. That’s all really. He finds himself in a universe that, as far as he can see, has absolutely no inherent or predetermined meaning or goal whatsoever. That’s scary, but it also leaves the universe open for humanity to create.
Even more, though, he wants to have companions to explore with. That was the motivation for wanting to show the real me in the first place. We humans have a truly amazing thing, but so many of us seem to write it off far too soon. I am amazed when I run into someone who is not completely confused by the human condition (We love how I’m switching personal pronouns here, don’t we… he... me…?). I just don’t get how anyone could think they have the answer. How could there be an answer? I want to spend my entire life evolving and exploring my consciousness; and I want to open the way for the rest of humanity to take it even further. Perhaps eventually humanity will learn how to create its own answers.
Or who knows… maybe I was just knocking on the wrong door in my head. Is that really the real me?
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