I Drew A Line

I was off the interweb yesterday, taking an off day for the first time since the restarting of this blog.  It's bound to happen.  Because sometimes, life happens too intensely to write about it in real time.

Identity.  It's a hard thing to define.  We think we are the way we are and we try to package and compartmentalize it so that we know how to project ourselves to the world.  Sometimes simplifying ourselves in this way works.  That's why I dye my hair so often and why I believe it to be therapeutic. Having a certain dramatic appearance allows me to zero in on a part of myself instead of trying to mentally encompass all the contradictory parts into one.

Maybe all the parts of ourselves aren't supposed to fit into one time frame.  It seems to me that life requires us to explore different parts of ourselves at varying points in our linear timeline.  It is the difference between blonde and black.  You cannot have both at once but you can experience them in succession.  Your core stays constant but you develop the surrounding forces by the ways in which you stretch yourself.

There are some ways in which I've never stretched myself.  When people ask, I usually say the truth - that I never found a compelling enough case.  I just wasn't moved to.  Or maybe that's only half the truth.  Maybe I don't know how.  But it raises the question.  Why is it so hard for us to entertain the idea that we are flexible in mind, body and spirit?  Why is it so hard for us to accept that we may be different than we thought?  Why do we focus more on what the world wants from us than what we want so much that we can rarely even discern our true desires?  And it's like what they say about learning to drive - the more you become comfortable living life without it, the more reluctant you are to learn.

I have found a compelling case - one that inspires and moves me to stretch my boundaries.  I am who I currently think I am, but who I think I am is flexible and constantly ready to grow.  I push myself recklessly into loopholes and caves, knowing that I do have the strength to emerge and that when I do, I will have learned an invaluable lesson.

Some days, as with the one from past, my blogs are short.  But I hope I have left you with something to think about because I definitely have left myself with many things.  I'll end this with a quote from my good friend and inspiration, whom I can talk to in even the most tantalizing of times.

"Sometimes we block our blessings because of fear! But these kind of experiences can actually liberate us." - Sy