Stories aren’t reality

Who am I?

When you go to a restaurant and explore the menu, you know that what you are interacting with is not the dinner itself. When we think of ourselves, we often forget that our stories are simply a description, a mentation, an abstraction of our experiences and the sense we have made of those. We cannot share our experiences and the sensation of being the accumulation of these experiences, so we share descriptions of them.

If we look deeper still, we discover that we are not even the accumulation of those experiences, actually. We are that which has accommodated those experiences like space accommodates objects that pass through it: even seemingly motionless objects like rocks are in slow motion through composition and decomposition, the movement of the ground, and the birth and death of planets. 

“Who am I?” is the single sharpest instrument of self-enquiry. It is not a question to be answered. It is a question to be truly asked. Deeply. Sincerely. Unknowingly of what comes next. Contrary to what society has made us believe, understanding doesn’t come from knowing. The unknown reveals itself only in the absence of knowing.

 

Relics from a Moment Ago

1980s I had sleep paralysis as a child. My attention was often drawn to the world of insects.

1990s I had epilepsy that I shed in my late teens. I promised myself never to let fear stop me from following my intuition.

2000s Drugs, hedonism as coping strategies. Narcissism.

2010s Self-improvement through fitness, university studies, and career progression. Narcissism 2.0.

2020s Gradual dissipation of the shadow of me and clarity on the futility of self-improvement.

Now: my abode.