Truly Become
You're not becoming. You're already being. Any other place is time travel.
An interesting question showed up in the travels of my eyeballs this morning.
What does it feel like to imagine…
the person you truly want to become?
I could knee-jerk into this.
Feel a bit excited and a bit fearful.
Rattle off something that sounds like reflection but isn’t necessarily “of the moment.”
Not really examined.
Instead, I came to a full stop.
We’re going to read this one phrase at a time.
“What does it feel like…”
Feel?
That’s a body thing.
Not a thinking thing.
And right there, that throws me, albeit blindly.
Because I have spent more than 98.somthing% of my 57 years inside my head.
Very little time in my heart.
Very little time in my body.
So when the question leads with feel, my instinct is to think about a feeling rather than find one.
Slow down.
Search the body.
What’s actually there?
“to imagine…”
Now we’re using the head again.
So the question is asking,
“What does it feel like in your body when your mind imagines something?”
That’s a different question than it first appeared to be.
“the person you truly want to become.”
Here’s where it stops me completely.
If I’m imagining the person I truly want to become…
Then right now, in this moment, I am something else, because I’m not who I want to truly become.
That’s what the question assumes.
You are here.
That person I “truly want to become” is somewhere else.
Out there.
In imagination.
In the future.
Someday.
And someday is the day that never comes.
I want to push back on the entire framing of the question.
I submit that I am not becoming anything.
I am in a continual state of being.
Of existing.
Because I can only be in this moment.
Being in any other place is mental time travel; you aren’t here right now.
Your mind is off on what my father calls a “boondoggle.”
Boondoggle.
Anything considered a waste of people’s time, money, or both.
When you think about the future, you are a time traveler.
Your brain leaves “here & now” and goes somewhere that hasn’t happened yet.
Which in most cases means people freaking themselves out about things that may never arrive.
Old Bert lived nearly his entire life in the future.
Pre-suffering bad outcomes to be ready for what may show up; prepare yourself.
Then beating myself up whenever I revisit something that I had the chance to avoid so I can thoroughly whip my own ass into shape (thats what I believe was the motivation)
That was fucking exhausting.
And it didn’t work.
And I’m done with that.
When you think about the past, you’re a time traveler too.
Bemoaning past actions and results that you cannot escape.
There is no Ctrl-Z.
There is no undoing it.
There is no do-over.
It is what it is, and that is that.
Time travel to the past is the parent of regrets.
Time moves forward whether I’m present or not.
I am being brought through time on a line.
We all are.
We experience time in one dimension, and we cannot escape that until we cease to exist in this carbon-based humanoid form.
So if I am a conscious being moving through time…
Then I am always in the becoming…
Not because I’m working toward something.
Because time moves.
And I move with it.
And what I do in this moment
determines where I show up on that line.
What does it feel like right now?
I’m tentatively “Okay.“
My head is metaphorically above water.
Arms and legs underneath, treading.
I’m working to stay up.
Not drowning.
Not swimming freely either.
But above the surface. Working to stay there.
At least with my depression.
Head above the surface for the first time in 7 years.
And what would be powerful, what I want to pour my energy into, are things that get people out of their heads.
Out of their bubbles.
Out from under their bridge.
Out of the basement.
Out of the attic.
Out of the man cave.
Out of the she-shed.
Actually out.
Actually connecting.
I was ready to call life quits more than once in the past three years.
And I didn’t.
And I can only be in this moment, and what I do right now determines where I show up next.
So maybe there is a better question than…
“What does it feel like to imagine who you want to become?”
Maybe it’s this
What are you doing right now?
With your resources,
your energy,
your agency,
your abilities?
Right now?
Does it feel like dread?
Possibility?
Overwhelm?
Do you want to run?
Because that’s the actual question.
Not someday.
Now.
Until next time,
Be well.
Bert 🙏
Supporting means appreciating the work.
