Who am I, Then?
I’ve heard it repeatedly said to me in conversation recently: “Bryce, be yourself.”
“Just be you.”
And infinite variation of the same.
I get these sentiments. They are offered in love. They are usually a reference to my sexuality, but also reference an encompassing view of my personality and a rejection of anything that would convince me to excise parts of myself. In now way does this blog post express anything like resentment for this advice. It’s good advice.
I nonetheless struggle with it.
That’s because I really don’t know who I am.
I envy those who seem to carry with them an assured sense of who they are. They know what they want, they know how to show up in the world, they have confidence and exude centeredness and balance. That has never been me.
Who am I, anyway? Am I the self-made man, chiseled out of stone by my own hand? Am I the Christian concept of Self, a Spiritual Being created by God to glorify Him eternally? Am I the Mormon concept of a Self, arranged by God but co-eternal and co-existant with God and just as everlasting? Am I the Hindu concept of the self, that our souls, atman, are the expression of the all-encompassing Spirit, Brahman, and my eternal destiny is to become one with it? Am I the Buddhist concept, rejecting the fixed self altogether? Am I all of these things? None?
I don’t know.
My sexuality is certainly a huge part of who I am. I love being around men and with men and I love men mentally, spiritually, emotionally and sexually (not that any actual demarcations exist between these domains to begin with.) I can’t deny that.
But it isn’t me.
Also huge is my Mormonism. Mormonism is core to my spirituality, offering a keen sense of connectedness to the divine and some guidance as to how to connect to that divine. I spent many years centering my life on Mormonism. It's who I was.
But not anymore. It isn’t me.
So when I am told to be myself, just what does that mean? Do I move uncompromising and inflexible through life, unwilling to change or learn or grow from my intersections with things that are not-self? Do I throw it all on the table until it breaks and let others deal with the damage? Do I burn any bridge that threatens my selfish self-expression? Or does it mean something gentler, wiser? To refuse to compromise my integrity even as I flow with the current? To choose wisely but only put on the table those things that are genuinely Self and not anything that is not-Self? To keep the bridges, but only cross the ones that feed my self? My Self?
I don’t know.
I really don’t have an answer.
I am just musing, really. That’s all this is. Pondering and asking questions of a subject that is as intractably vast, perhaps, as the Universe itself. For are we not all part of the Universe? Are we not the Universe admiring itself? Are we not the elements organized into that miracle of Human Life, billions of neurons and muscle and bone and skin chained together in a seamless work of divine art? Are we not manifestations of that interconnected vastness that makes us at once smaller than dust, and yet seeds in the likeness of the divine Father and Mother themselves?
Who am I, then?
Perhaps you have a clearer answer for yourself than I do. But for me, I embrace the mystery of just what my “self” is. Perhaps the time will come when I will know the answer with greater exactness, but until then I revel in the fact that I am both human and Divine, a sum of unfixed parts that shift and grow and lessen and reveal dynamicity beyond fathoming.
“Just be you.”
And infinite variation of the same.
I get these sentiments. They are offered in love. They are usually a reference to my sexuality, but also reference an encompassing view of my personality and a rejection of anything that would convince me to excise parts of myself. In now way does this blog post express anything like resentment for this advice. It’s good advice.
I nonetheless struggle with it.
That’s because I really don’t know who I am.
I envy those who seem to carry with them an assured sense of who they are. They know what they want, they know how to show up in the world, they have confidence and exude centeredness and balance. That has never been me.
Who am I, anyway? Am I the self-made man, chiseled out of stone by my own hand? Am I the Christian concept of Self, a Spiritual Being created by God to glorify Him eternally? Am I the Mormon concept of a Self, arranged by God but co-eternal and co-existant with God and just as everlasting? Am I the Hindu concept of the self, that our souls, atman, are the expression of the all-encompassing Spirit, Brahman, and my eternal destiny is to become one with it? Am I the Buddhist concept, rejecting the fixed self altogether? Am I all of these things? None?
I don’t know.
My sexuality is certainly a huge part of who I am. I love being around men and with men and I love men mentally, spiritually, emotionally and sexually (not that any actual demarcations exist between these domains to begin with.) I can’t deny that.
Also huge is my Mormonism. Mormonism is core to my spirituality, offering a keen sense of connectedness to the divine and some guidance as to how to connect to that divine. I spent many years centering my life on Mormonism. It's who I was.
So when I am told to be myself, just what does that mean? Do I move uncompromising and inflexible through life, unwilling to change or learn or grow from my intersections with things that are not-self? Do I throw it all on the table until it breaks and let others deal with the damage? Do I burn any bridge that threatens my selfish self-expression? Or does it mean something gentler, wiser? To refuse to compromise my integrity even as I flow with the current? To choose wisely but only put on the table those things that are genuinely Self and not anything that is not-Self? To keep the bridges, but only cross the ones that feed my self? My Self?
I really don’t have an answer.
I am just musing, really. That’s all this is. Pondering and asking questions of a subject that is as intractably vast, perhaps, as the Universe itself. For are we not all part of the Universe? Are we not the Universe admiring itself? Are we not the elements organized into that miracle of Human Life, billions of neurons and muscle and bone and skin chained together in a seamless work of divine art? Are we not manifestations of that interconnected vastness that makes us at once smaller than dust, and yet seeds in the likeness of the divine Father and Mother themselves?
Who am I, then?
Perhaps you have a clearer answer for yourself than I do. But for me, I embrace the mystery of just what my “self” is. Perhaps the time will come when I will know the answer with greater exactness, but until then I revel in the fact that I am both human and Divine, a sum of unfixed parts that shift and grow and lessen and reveal dynamicity beyond fathoming.
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