What am I?
There is a primal urge in me that hungers to belong, take a label as a badge of confraternity, and feel safe in the harbor of settled thoughts. Or I could set out for the landless horizon letting the to and fro of truth lead me along, unburdened by the ballast of labels.
I father children. I marry wives. I walk in the sunlight. I rest in the shade. I study the words of Buddha. I hear stories of Shiva. I doubt the gods. I cherish life. I fear death. But what am I?
In conversation I may apply labels—husband, father, Buddhist, atheist, Thelemite—to aid comprehension. But inwardly, to myself, I hold back. I hesitate at the head of that path. Some wiser part of me knows that deception is the fate of those who follow there.
What am I? By lack of definition, I am everything, a being of great immensity, without beginning of days or end of years. I reign from the rivers to the ends of the earth. If anything is sacred, I am sacred. Petty labels have no power to contain me. Only fools fall for that old trick.
What am I?
I am.
This post brought to you by a brain on Walt Whitman.
Posted by Jonathan on July 10th, 2009.
Puppetji has something to say on the subject.
Posted by Jonathan on August 19th, 2009.