How different is your true self? Has this changed over your life?

The differences seem less and less significant with time. Not that there are fewer differences now, more that the differences just don’t much matter. I don’t care anymore about distinguishing myself in this or that, like I did decades ago. I don’t want to be special. Our common ordinariness is good enough for me.

I don’t feel much different from my true self may be because I am quite honest about how I feel to myself.

@wundayatta, you certainly ARE unique, gifted and very well spoken.

Having said that, there are seasons of life to pass through and none of us can or would want to stay the same – life’s experience and its discoveries and recognitions are bound to change us all, but hopefully it more smooths off our rough edges of youth.

I think each of us has a True North that is us and our core “us-ness” stays in place. If we were to think of our everyday selves through the decades as like the earth in its perptetual orbit of time and seasons but the axis though shifting with personal tusumanis and earthquakes etc, is still in place.

I truly do feel like every person is unique, though walking through the community of humanity. If you don’t believe that, try losing a loved one and see if anyone can take their place no matter how many other wonderful people come into your life.

I think we all want to feel or think we’re special or unique, but I don’t think we are. People want to be different and express themselves, but we’re always going to end up another cog in the system, droning on at work and home until we die. After all, we are just animals, essentially no different than other animals that do their cyclic pattern that is observed by us and shown on T.V.

If another species viewed us on the Discovery Channel, it would not be different: “These are American humans, their life pattern consists of linear education, with the goal of using their acquired knowledge to get a job and start a family. Watch as John searches for the best college to go to, he will leave the nest and start his own life now.

Not everyone goes to college, though. Take a look at Bobby, he worked his way up in a company and through hard work and proving himself, has become the regional manager. Now he wants to find a mate and settle down…”

At times of pain and illness I have felt ‘separate’ from my body. I’ll often curse at the body I’m in. It makes no sense, really, but, there you have it. A coping mechanism, I suppose, to get me through the worst days and convince and force myself I can keep going through the motions, doing what I need to do.

I am seldom social these days and tend to live inside my head for the most part, pouring myself out into the ether like this, so I feel, perhaps, I can be ‘more true’ to a set of anonymous strangers than to the few people around me.

As I’ve been able to control more and more of my life then it’s been safer or more secure to let my “true” self have more face time. It’s never been that different than my everyday self, just details.

My core self has always been more or less the same…probably since I was a little kid.

The way others perceive me may seem different than my true self. But it’s not so much different as it is limited.

There are a lot of different sides to me that may seem contrary. But there’s an underlying pattern to the chaos.

Visually, it might look like this.