Losing Myself

This blog was supposed to be about issues and beliefs, not personal experience. But I guess it is inevitable that the one should influence the other.

Sometimes in the course of the day or the week I lose myself. In the practice of saying things I do not mean and doing things I do not think are important, I lose my integrity. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say I cover my integrity up, like a fresh wound becomes hidden behind a scab.

When I say I lose my integrity, I do not mean that I manipulate others to my advantage. Quite the opposite. What I find myself doing is manipulating myself for other's convenience. I become what others need, demand, or expect, because I believe it for the time being to be necessary or expedient. And in those manipulations of myself, my integrity is lost, and eventually I myself become lost.

My definition of the good life is one in which every action and word flows from the center of my being, and nothing is extraneous. To be myself completely; to be myself deeply; to be myself with integrity. Always to stand on the firm ground of the soul. I think it is this longing that makes me nostalgic for simpler times and places, times and places I've never visited except in my imagination.

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