Life
Lessons
“Our
lives teach us who we are.”
Salman
Rushdie
There's
an old song by The Who that goes, “Who are you? Who, who, who,
who...I really want to know...” Now and then, it catches in my head
and plays repeatedly. The Who tapped into a huge spiritual question
that not enough people ask. “Who are you?” More specifically,
“Who am I?”
We
are not static beings. We grow and change, we are shaped by our
circumstances and our environment. We come here with a certain
temperament and personality, we are molded by our family
ethos and values, and we may never stray very far from the tribal
tree. When we do depart, however, either by way of education, work or
travel, we learn other values and ways of being. Like amoeba, we
collect pieces and incorporate them into our personal jigsaw puzzle
of a psyche. Some “foreign ways” may feel more natural and native
to us than those we've grown up with. If we actually live in another
culture long enough to become immersed in an entirely new way of
being, it may be impossible for us to return to our roots. We become
a “different person,” one who has integrated the ethics and
ideals of another society to such a degree that they are now our own.
If
we actually live out in the world, we will be changed by it. Like
adding layers to a cake, we build a body of experience that creates
the “who” that we become. Down deep inside, we retain the
temperament and personality we brought into the world, but we learn
different ways of expressing them. It is good, from time to time, to
check in with oneself—to take stock of what events have occurred
along the way. How have they changed me? How have they affected my
understanding of the world? What has my life taught me about who I am
now?
In
the Spirit,
Jane
No comments:
Post a Comment