Becoming You

Well. Your life begins anew with each breath. A yoga teacher once reminded me of this at the start of a 6 hour workshop. “Your body will be irrevocably changed by this day.”

And this is no exaggeration. It’s plain to see that we will never replicate a quantum of time already passed by. Every moment carries a unique time-stamp.

There’s more to it than this (somewhat facile) observation that we can’t travel back in time. For at each moment we consist of a remarkably unique arrangement of time, yes, and also: physical matter, and (in my opinion) the orientation of our soul, the state of our energetics, and other as-yet-unconfirmed traits that we may possess.

Here’s a million dollar question: is there a core you underneath the changing exterior? Something that remains throughout the eternal cycling of matter and time that ultimately carry us through life, into the grave, and back into the uncomfortably monumental pendulum of the cosmos?

The stakes to this question couldn’t be higher. To illustrate, let’s assume for a second there is an irreducible essence at the center, blurred by the constant change unfolding near the outer crust.

In that case it seems imperative, maybe even the ultimate mission of life, to dive into the well of ourselves and come to intimately know that essence, so that we may match up whatever sliver of free will we possess with the core of ourselves. To do otherwise would assure us of life-long disillusion or misery. At best we’d get lucky and unwittingly match our actions to our essence a good percentage of the time. At worst, our actions would be totally out of synch with our true selves, built askew to our foundation.

We’d be Quixote, forever lancing at windmills, chasing honorably and comically our absurd and senseless ends.

I doubt that any of us alive will know whether a core self exists “empirically” — whatever the hell that means these days as crises of the scientific method unfold with alarming consistency.

Yet it strikes me as deeply uncomfortable not to have an answer, a working version of the truth. How can we develop convictions about any principles, or commitments to other people or life-long projects, without having decided (with some amount of unescapable arbitrariness) whether we believe in a stable kernel submerged in the constant flux of life?

Both models of existence (core self vs. no-self) present workable options for rich engagement with the world, but with completely different postures and consequences.

For example, if you believe the no-self paradigm, you could decide that there is some set of universal (Aristotelian) standards that you, the ever-changing you, can choose at every moment in time to attempt to comply with. Your mission would be to derive or understand these principles, and interpret them in the context of your decisions and actions to guide you forward.

Alternatively, still within this “no-self” paradigm, you could adopt a deterministic and/or nihilistic approach, in which your actions are fated, the apparent turbulence of life is all there is, and you do your best to muddle through, shrugging your shoulders at your own foibles and those of others, and hoping you’re not one of the unfortunates cursed by randomness and chaos to a life of suffering. That is, if there is any alternative to suffering for anyone.

In both of these approaches what strikes me is that they are by necessity ways of moving through the world that respond to something that exists outside of the self. If there is no core self, because the “self” is really just a narrative illusion of a being constantly fragmenting and reforming, then how else could we interpret our actions rather than in relation to some external structure?

The other model of the world, in which a core self does exist, tends more towards in internal attitude. The structure lies somewhere in there, obscured by buffeting winds of change swirling around us. As we locate that illusive pearl, come to understand its nature, to brush away the dirt smudging its surface, we also connect to a bedrock on which we can stand.

The core self provides the guardrails for our interaction with the external world. All of our decisions we scrutinize in the context of who we really are underneath it all. Does this project accord with my soul’s calling? Does my action here represent who I really am, or is it out of synch? This relationship — what form should it take given what I know about myself and my role in the world at large?

Both models (core self and no-self), I believe, can work. But in practice they would be as different as Bach and Metallica.

If you don’t choose at all, you relinquish your own life. In my experience, you get the sensation of careening around the world, or of getting tugged in opposite directions. There’s a sense that nothing is bolted down, that the levee is always fucking breaking. We can’t make heads or tails of our days, how we use our time, or make meaning of our experiences without knowing, fundamentally, if we will have this primarily internal or external orientation.

So pick one. Really decide.

Until you do, you’re living in a life that’s not your own. A life in which you keep asking yourself: “hey, when does this show really begin?”

Make a choice. Become You.

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