Something True in This World

We spend so much of life learning to fit in that we forget what it feels like to be ourselves. Beneath the borrowed beliefs, constructed personas, and endless churn of derivative noise, something within us still knows what rings true. The trick is having the courage to listen, trust what we sense, and let the world see who we really are.

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Much of what we associate with identity is a kind of potpourri: a mixture of experiences, experiments, environmental influences, and circumstances that accumulate over time.

We form beliefs by adopting them, borrowing them, or being manipulated into to them. Our feeling, sensing self tells us early on whether something resonates with us. As we grow through our own stories, hopefully we develop the courage to recognize when something “other” offers ideas and heart murmurings that feel a little more like our own.

Nobody likes feeling or acting like a fraud, yet some do so by default and can even make a good living at it. But when we force ourselves to push through or insist on seeing “love and light” where things only ever feel heavy, some part of us is damaged energetically, spiritually, and even physically.

This is the unconscious malice behind going along to get along, or worse, trying to fit in. We bend our own hard-coded rules to please others, keep the peace, or make do, pretending the compromise is somehow true and real enough.

To mask who you are is to destroy something true in this world.

For those who are conscious and aware, conformity and sameness feel… off. They leave a bad taste, and forcing ourselves into them can keep injuring us long afterward.

Originality — standing for something true to who we really are — takes courage, but rarely gets funding or support. It takes a willingness to risk epic failure. It takes passion, but not just any old passion. Anybody can be a jaded cynic. Artists can certainly be prickly, but always with a certain twinkle in their eye.

Developing character requires deep introspection and brutal truth. It demands authenticity and the burning away of impurities, again and again, through every phase of our lives.

That tickle and tension in your throat are asking you to speak up. The nausea in your belly is asking you to toughen up. The numbness in your feet is telling you to stand up. That tension between your eyes is asking you to look up.

Pay attention to what you identify with. Heed your growing awareness and trust yourself.

You are more. You are enough.

Solvitur ambulando