Today is my birthday, and I’m contemplating a question asked by John Bejakovic in his Daily Email House community.
John shared how influencers who adopt a fake, exaggerated persona are beloved by those who follow them, despite the inauthenticity of playing a role. He then quoted Dan Kennedy, “the basis of influence is invention,” and posed the question:
“Are you repulsed by the inauthenticity of creating a fictional or semi-fictional persona for yourself? Or are you intrigued by the challenge and possibilities?”
I responded with a ramble about how identity is entirely fictional, whether I make it up as “fake” or “authentic.”
There is no Stephanie outside of what she thinks she is, or what other people make up about her (which also isn’t her.) 😵💫
While I enjoyed the contemplation, something about it was dissatisfying. The inquiry stayed with me, playing through my mind like a zephyr.
Until today, when I read this passage in The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. (Bold text is mine.)
“But do you need to have a relationship with yourself at all? Why can’t you just be yourself? When you have a relationship with yourself, you have split yourself in two: ‘I’ and ‘myself,’ subject and object. That mind created duality is the root cause of all unnecessary complexity, of all problems and conflict in your life. In the state of enlightenment, you are yourself — ‘you’ and ‘yourself’ merge into one. You do not judge yourself, you do not feel sorry for yourself, you are not proud of yourself, you do not love yourself, you do not hate yourself, and so on. The split caused by self-reflective consciousness is healed, its curse removed. There is no ‘self’ that you need to protect, defend, or feed anymore. When you are enlightened, there is one relationship that you no longer have: the relationship with yourself.”
This.
This is the answer I didn’t know I was looking for.
I don’t want to invent myself at all. Not as a superhero or the girl-next-door, or your friend the quirky dragon-loving coach. There is something inherently false in all these versions of myself because they aren’t me.
Simply being me feels amazing. I don’t need to think about it.
So on my birthday, that’s the wish I’ll be making when I blow out the candles on my Portuguese cinnamon roll.
I wish to think about myself less, and be myself more. To enjoy a life without “me” in it.
Yours in love and play,
Steph
