When are you really you

I mentioned a week or two ago how Jonathan Carroll is one of my favorite writers and that he also has the best Facebook posts of anyone I know. He'll post strange images and quotes and ideas that just strike his fancy. It is like a constant stream of brilliance. You never know what he is going to discuss but you can almost guarantee that it will be staying with you for a while.

One of the things he posted recently was how he was thinking about the question he is often asked "Where I should I get started in reading your work." He's written novels and short stories over decades and it is sometimes daunting to wonder just where to begin. Do you start with his first novel, do you read what people consider to be his best, do you grab his most recent and relevant work or is it somewhere in between.

He didn't answer that question but instead asked the following: "If you were to introduce someone to yourself when would you have them meet you?" Meaning at what age, at what moment in your life were you the truest version of yourself. When you look back at your life at what point do you say, "If you met me then you would know all my dreams and fears, all of my hopes and desires, you would know exactly who I am."

What an amazing question. I've spent weeks going back and forth with myself as to what my answer would be. It is tempting to say the end of high school or the beginning of college because that is when you are optimistic and energetic and feel like you are the most important being in the world. Except that looking back at myself I am embarassed by who I was, how uncool I was and how I was stumbling trying to figure out who I was. I had a vision and I had good intentions but I'm not sure if it would represent who I would become, for better or for worse.

Likewise I'm not sure if I would want someone to meet the current version of me and state that this is who I am, even though I am doing everything I possibly can to continue to improve whatever it is that I am. Life knocks you down as the years go by and even though you continue to get back up your skin grows more and more calloused. I'm more cynical than I was when I was younger and not in the hipster sense. It's a negative, depressing type of cynicism that I am trying to change. I don't think you can know who I am without understanding those hopes and dreams that I had that now lie much farther underneath the surface.

Maybe there isn't one moment when you are truly you. The act of observing effects the observed. We are continually changing and evolving and unless you have been along for the entire journey you can't understand the full story. Maybe it is just that we should strive every day to be who we truly are. To express what it is to be us. It is a challenge, though.

Sunday Night Music Club: I'm trying to get back into music and posting videos. Mainly this will mean lots of Drive By Truckers songs. Not a bad way to start.