I am not I.
I am this one walking beside me,
whom I do not see,
whom at times I manage to visit
and at other times.....I forget.
Juan Ramon Jimenez
Growing older has brought on an audacity, a form of care-free intention that surpasses the considerations of the past. Now, I am surging with a passion for truth that goes beyond the comfort zones I’ve known. I can feel within me a kind of necessity, an urge to go into the deepest recesses of my being, to give voice to what has been within me (all these years), but has never been articulated. I’m bracing for surprise, discomfort, and learning.
These are words I have never let myself utter or know. All along, throughout my life, I have been two beings. Without knowing it, I am a twin being. One known, and one not. One, the me I have mostly identified with, the other, some stranger that has popped-up, from somewhere within, to shape my life.
I am not just I, I am some amalgam of myself, and another being, who is also me. I can’t really explain what I am describing.
I don’t have any control of this other, who is me. I have had some premonitions, insights, and surprise behaviors. Awareness has come to me unbidden. These moments were too specific, too germane, too well-targeted for me to ignore. For instance, I wrote Embracing Life without even knowing I was doing it. I don’t mean it was channeled, or some form of unconscious free writing. I thought I was dying at the time, but something else was happening. I wrote for my life, the words and ideas just flowed. I marveled, learning from the what emerged, and felt compelled to keep going.
I wrote a book-length manuscript that was mainly composed of things I didn’t know I knew. Something in me knew what I was doing, but the one I think of myself as, had no idea what I was up to. I was so confounded, I thought that I would probably die when I finished writing. Instead, the writing brought me back to life.
Shortly thereafter, I became Lucky, and the truth is, I knew I owed my continued existence to some mysterious part of myself that now lived more fully through me. Since then, I have grown more aware of what I call another side of me. I still have no control of this being, but I rely more heavily upon it. I believe, I am more this unknown other, than I am myself. That sounds strange, and is strange, but is more true than ever before.
I have a story I tell myself about this bizarre twist in my journey. It is a somewhat convoluted one, containing ideas that I am grappling with, and claims I cannot give myself credit for imagining — which all adds up, to a life that is a bifurcated. When I was writing Embracing Life I became very enthralled with holons. Holons, were I thought abstract ideas, that tried to convey the dual-sided nature of reality. Taken from holography, the holon was a way of describing how it was that a part of a holographic image could contain the whole image.
Everything, according to this line of thought, has a dual nature; it is a part of something larger, and a wholeness itself. That includes me. It is like there are two mes: one represents the whole, and one the part. Since I can remember, I have identified as one, not knowing the other. One was the me I felt myself to be (part), and one is the one I also am (whole).
It is here, in my later life, where I can now see that both are operating within me. This has been always been true. Aging has increased my awareness, shedding light on past behavior, and revealing something that knew what life-trajectory I was on, even though, I had no idea at the time. Some internal being took me into the world I’ve inhabited, leaving another part of me uncertain and anxious.
Exposure to what, at first, was only an dim awareness has changed my life. The deeply paradoxical notion of a natural disposition toward whole/partness has led me to an awareness that also joins what seems to be opposite. I now enjoy an experience that contains both, a here and now surfacy awareness of separateness, and a deeper sense of connection. One does not eclipse the other, they both coexist.
My attention is not riveted to one or the other, but to both, revealing their relationship, and the linkages between them. This kind of consciousness makes a host of things evident to me. As time has gone on, I’ve come to see, that I am simultaneously aware of myself as part of the all, and as all that is. I don’t claim this to be a specialized spiritual sensibility, instead I tend to think of it, as a natural outcome of living and evolving with holonic awareness.
Growing older has had the effect of sharpening my awareness. I can see now what I couldn’t see before. On one hand, I’m not who I used to be, on another, I am who I always have been. I occupy this world like an ordinary human being, aging along, struggling for meaning, and experiencing a variety of vulnerabilities. Similarly, I see more than I imagined — a being with an invisible history, and a reliable trust of the enlarging picture.
As I’ve grown older, my inner life has begun to become more apparent. This has revealed a movement within, that I have long noticed, but didn’t consider important. Now however, I can see that the one I have considered myself, has moved toward the one I don’t know, and that that one has become more palpable.
Looking again at my life, shows that the latter has always been present, and exercised great influence upon my life course. This is a disturbing perception. It leaves me wondering about how autonomous I am? The evidence suggests that I am subject to inside influence, and that that influence came from an unknown aspect of me. I may not be autonomous in ways I don’t really understand. When I consider that experience, and look at my overall life course, I see that both elements of my being pulled in a same direction, but at different speeds. Sometimes, the more surfacy me dominated, sometimes the unknown me prevailed.
All of these perceptions lead me to think of conflict. I wonder if there were moments in my life when each may have pulled in different directions? I remember what a risk it was for me to go to graduate school. I was not at all sure I belonged — not because of the school — but because my self-image was one of inadequacy.
I was depressed for a long time. I had worked a series of good, but dissatisfying jobs. My self-image was in the dump. Basically, I was living beneath my capabilities. The girlfriend I had then, in a drunken tirade, shamed me into applying for, and going to grad school. She could see my potential better than I could. I tell this story on myself to illustrate a period of my life where there was an incongruity between the different aspects of my being. The me I related to was less me than the one that began emerging, when I later overcame my hesitancy and went to graduate school.
It is now possible for me to say that my life has largely been defined, or composed, by the interplay between different aspects of my being. One seems more defined by the opportunities afforded by life in my family, community and culture; whereas, the other seems to me to be a manifestation of some other imperative. One is a situation-bound, historically defined aspect, more part-like and of the moment, than the other, who is defined by a bigger, more holistic, timeless, and universal picture.
I have read Carl Jung. My experience sounds like Jung’s conception of Self and self. He posited a higher Self, that had a more transpersonal nature, and combined conscious and unconscious, to live more congruent with the life-force. His conception explains much of what I experience, with one important exception. Jung believed that the Higher Self only became evident through the hard work of sustained spiritual practice. My life has not been dedicated to any form of on-going, regular spiritual practice. The twin centers I experience have become evident to me naturally with no particular stimulant; not hallucinogens, spiritual practice, or aspiration.
I did have, at age 55, a medical form of initiation. I knew my consciousness had been altered. I experienced a long (3+ years) near-death experience where I existed like a terminal patient without actually crossing over. While being dismembered, as I was with my brain hemorrhage, and subsequent damage, my sense of self went through profound change — but it is only aging — that has brought me to my present considerations. Growing older has provided a natural stimulant. Repeated experience, of dual centers, has had the effect of altering my awareness. It has brought me to a life pattern, that appears to me to be totally organic, and built-in to the human psyche.
I have not been prepared for this element of experience. I don’t really know what to make of it. Maybe, Jung’s conception adequately captures my experience. I’m not satisfied with it, however.
I am some sort of composite being, with an identity that conforms to convention and one that doesn’t. My way of describing what I am experiencing, is that there is in me an alternate identity, arising from within. It isn’t threatening to replace my customary sense of self. At this point it mainly seems to be supplementing my awareness, and boosting my presence. I am being introduced to a bigger, more nuanced picture. I am also much more paradoxically aware, by that I mean, I have a much stronger sense of how connected things are. All of this makes me a different kind of being, human in a way I never expected.
So far, I am not upset by this side of me — as it seems to be adding to my capabilities — but I am bemused, wondering what it could possibly mean? The sense that something else—a distant, vague, and uncontrollable part of me— operates, leaves me feeling vulnerable, but inspired, like I have a secret superpower. I also feel an inchoate sense of responsibility. I don’t know if what I sense is common, known, and reliable or not.
I do have a theory though. It involves the increasing longevity of human life, and the perception that a new chapter in the evolution of human consciousness is arriving. Species survival, for we humans, may be tied to an increased awareness of exactly how connected we are to the natural processes of the Universe. And, if my experience is relevant, and reflects an embellishment of our nature, then it looks as if these same natural processes, are at work, altering our species.