THURSDAY, 23 SEPTEMBER 2004
For years I searched for identity and tried to work out how I should appear to the world. I finally came to the realisation that you have to confront your “given self”, accept what you cannot change, and then taking into account the given material and given time and place, define who you want to be, how you want to appear to the world, whether you want to play any kind of role in the world, what role you might want to play, where you might want to play this role, and how you plan to meet your own needs where you currently are considering who you have decided to be and what role you have decided you would want to play, or what contribution you would want to make.
One question remains, however, after you have figured out these things: DO YOU WANT TO APPEAR?
If you choose to appear, all your answers to the above questions kick in.
Should you choose to not appear, everything changes. Most of your answers will become useless, with new questions that will need to be answered in order to fulfil a different set of needs (or similar physical needs, but psychologically different).
This is the question I am contemplating at this point of my life. Do I want to be who I am (now), in the place I have chosen to be this “I”, and to fulfil the role I have defined for myself, or do I want to disappear … or rather, do I only want to make minimal, and mostly anonymous appearances in order to fulfil my basic physical needs?
SUNDAY, 10 OCTOBER 2004
Inevitable course of spiritual evolution?
You get tired of explaining yourself to other people. You also become increasingly aware of your own caricature in appearing to the world. You increasingly start to experience a need to withdraw.
Is this an inevitable part of spiritual evolution? Can the increasing desire to separate yourself from the rest of the world be avoided?
______________________