I Am A Rock, I Am An Island

i am reading jack kornfield's book, a path with heart, and just finished a chapter that ends with a meditation on "who am i?"  as i began thinking about who i am, i came up with so many "i's" but i don't think i've gotten to the essence of who i am.  there are lots of i's but are any of them the "real" me?  is there a real me?  who i am changes from moment to moment, from day to day, for year to year, and over longer spans of time.  the roles i play aren't who i am.  in fulfilling the obligation to be a husband, a father, a son, a brother, a friend, i am expressing a part of who i am, but that is not the core of me.

perhaps the point of the meditation is to help us see that we are many things but none of those things that we are expresses who we are in our entirety.  perhaps the intent is to peal away the layers of the roles that we play until we come to the core of our being, so maybe it takes longer that the fifteen minutes or so that the meditation calls for to reach that center of who we are.  maybe this is a process that must be repeated many times before we come to understand who we are.  i could write a hundred blog posts about the "me's" on my list without reaching the end of the list and i'm not sure any of them would reveal the entirety of who i am.

i suppose i am a collection of all those roles i play, of all the events, people, and ideas that have influenced my life, of the places i've lived, of everything that has happened in my 70+ years, perhaps of past lives lived.  so much complexity, yet so much simplicity in who i am.  i'm just me, the sum of all my parts, yet more than that and less.  i am the child crying in fear of the escalator that i must ride, i am the brave man who has faced loss and survived.  i am the doubter, the believer, the seeker, the wise man, the foolish man, all of those and none.

may we each reflect on who we are.  may those reflections lead us to a better understanding of who, what, why, how we are.  may we never stop seeking to become our true selves, living authentic, caring lives, loving ourselves and one another, honoring each person's progress along the path.  shalom.