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It is early in the morning. The sun looks groggy as it pulls its way, through the haze, and up to its perch in the sky. Mountains have yet to awaken, laying still, stretched out across the vast California landscape. The other cars on the road fly down the interstate with their drivers still riding high off of their morning cups of coffee, their expressions blank, with eyes wide and bloodshot, peeled on what is ahead of them. Their minds are jittery and awake, while their spirits still lay fast asleep back at home.
When you are in the passenger seat, halfway between asleep and awake, 80 miles per hour is a breeze. I look out the window at the telephone wires. They look as if they are trying to keep up with me; racing from post to post, drooping in between each one, creating a smooth, rhythmic wave of wires. As we drive by, the tall grass on the side of the road turns to look at us. Each long thin blade sways as if all are tuned in to one beautiful song. Perhaps that song is blasting up through their roots and into each of their souls. Perhaps if I was sitting in that grass I could also tune in to Mother Earths beautiful song.
I wouldn't know. My window is rolled up. The only song I hear is "Idiot Wind" by Bob Dylan, which my Dad has been humming for the last twenty minutes. Even though my father has taken some liberties and turned Dylans four minute song into a never ending humming epic, it still manages to soothe me. At times his humming ascends to a loud crescendo, and from there it eventually plummets down to an almost inaudible whisper. However he sings it, the chorus is always the most intelligible part of the song. "THE IDIOT WIND, HMM Hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hm hm hmm!"
Its been years since Ive been on a road trip with my dad. It feels good to be back on the road with him. He drives with the look of total control. I feel safe falling asleep when he is driving. Even as the world flies by at 80 mph, I feel completely comfortable. My dad is the only person I have ever met that could control his own destiny.
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There has always been something romantic to me about a man and his son screaming down highway 5 with nothing but an open stretch of asphalt ahead. I can feel the pride bursting out from both of our bodies. It fills the car. It feels like floating in water. We both feel immersed in the present moment. Our souls are intertwined with a mixture of blood and love. I look at him and I feel rooted. I feel the accumulated knowledge of my ancestors pumping through my veins and in and out of my heart. I feel like a million years old.
It is hard to believe that twenty one years have passed since I appeared on this scene. I have become a man. I have a job. I have a beard. My hands are strong and defined. My hair has begun to recede at my temples. I look like and am treated like an adult in my society.
But Im not. I am still that four year old that would wake up every morning and run into his parents bedroom to cuddle between them before they got up. I am still that 6 year old that ran away for 6 hours behind the couch in the living room, returning only because of the need for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I am still that 8 year old that dreamed of someday becoming a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. How can I be an adult?
I only recently realized that every adult is a product of their childhood. I guess I had always subconsciously thought that once these children became adults that their childhood didnt carry over with them - that it had to be left behind. Now that I am an adult, I understand that there really is no difference between the two. We are who we are throughout our entire lives. There is no separation between child and adult. There is no turning point in natural growth where we shed our childhood cocoon and become a totally new adult creature. We grow more and more every second that we spend on Earth. To separate this growth into only a few separate categories cannot be very accurate. I will always be who I am.
But who am I really?
Strange thoughts keep me busy on this long drive as I drift in and out of consciousness, a great time to delve into my innermost self to find the core of who I really am. This peak experience, this sense of true euphoria, creates a very comfortable space for self realization. My brain is a course catalog of theory and thought. My memories are my study notes. As my dad hums his one-man symphony I peel away at the thick layers of my being.
Every moment of my life has been something new. I am a being in constant motion. My body allows millions of different combinations; my many different appendages are capable of their own individual positions. Together, my body is an open landscape of undiscovered contortions. So how can I define who I am if my body is constantly changing? Perhaps the answer lies elsewhere.
I used to compare my brain to a giant storage facility - a place where everything came in and never came out, where rows and rows of file cabinets with everything from my deepest secrets, to my favorite type of ice cream, were securely locked inside. It was a conception of my brain that I had grown very comfortable with. I was a mystery to the outside world and only I had the key to get into this facility.
I have recently revised that analogy, due to a changed outlook on life, and changed it from a giant storage facility to a giant wall of flypaper. The wall is as long as my lifespan. The world outside of my eyes flies by me. Some pieces of the world stick to my surface and become memories, feelings, relationships, and other sentimentalities. Over the years my brain has become a piece of art which I love to share with the world. I view the world as it goes by, and whatever sticks has nothing to do with my own choice. Whether or not the world chooses what sticks and what doesn't is beyond my own perception. I wouldn't know how to begin to find that out. I guess that is what faith is for.
Everything that sticks to this giant wall of flypaper is an outside source of information adding to the giant piece of art. These pieces are not me, but become something which I can identify with. They are influences on my personality and my thoughts and, because of that, neither my personality nor my thoughts can be who I really am. Who I really am is not molded by my surroundings. It has to be something that cannot change or be tampered with by outside influences. It has to be something deeper.
Rollo May, an existentialist, described "being" as the first step to having an essence. When someone is missing an essence it is as if they are dead inside. He said that feeling existential anxiety and death helps one feel the essence of life. He also wrote about "the daimonic." He described it as the energy that is part of our existence. The daimonic is the urge in every being to perpetuate themselves. Could this have something to do with who I am? Could it be the essence that I am looking for?
Wilhelm Reich wrote about a "bio energy" which is described as the life energy in our bodies. This energy always exists inside ourselves but it can be damned up and repressed because of overwhelming experiences or childhood trauma.
Zen Buddhists speak of enlightenment. When a person is fully awake and in the present moment they are enlightened. Abraham Maslow, one of the founders of humanistic psychology, would describe this as self actualization. Transpersonal Psychologists would call this a peak experience.
I open my eyes and lift my head from my pillow. The sun is high in the sky now, yet it is still early in the day. My dad has put The Allman Brothers on the stereo and sings along underneath his breath. He notices that I have lifted my head and pats my knee.
"You've been asleep for a long time."
"I haven't been asleep, I'm just thinking."
Perhaps the theories that these people refer to are basically about the same thing : that there is some inexplicable force inside us that gives us the ability of life; that when we realize this force within us we become enlightened. Perhaps what they are all referring to is the soul.
The one thing that cannot be tampered with, that will always be, is the soul. That is who I really am, but what really is the soul?
I place my head back down on the pillow and meditate. I focus on my breathing and relax my mind and muscles. This is not easy but eventually my thoughts melt away. My body, the car, my father, The Allman Brothers, all fade away. I am deep behind my consciousness. I feel a warmth. The farther in I search the warmer it gets. Soon the warmth turns into an extreme heat. It is in no way uncomfortable. It is revitalizing. I become surrounded by a white light. I am not afraid. I feel totally comfortable because I am myself. This isn't a foreign feeling. It is as if I am looking in the mirror for the first time. It's new, but it is who I have always been.
I come out of the meditation with a feeling of lightness. I'm not sure of what I saw but I knew that it was me the way I really am. It felt like a piece of the divine. It was a constant, unchanging piece of perfection that I saw. I knew it wasn't anything I've ever seen before, but something that I have always known was there. It was the same feeling that I felt as that four year old, finding that my parents hadn't yet woken up. It was the comfort of crawling in-between them and curling up in the warmth of their bodies. The only way I can describe it is as the feeling of being alive.
That is who I am. I am the feeling of being alive. I am the unchanging divine being. There is no way to describe me at my very best. I am always at my very best. I am always at my very worst. I am a constant accumulation of the divine.
I am not Sam Chase, I am not a man with strong, well defined hands and a hairline that is receding at the temples. I am not "that guy" that you see around campus or have sat next to in some section. I am not the clothes that I am wearing or the food that I eat. I am not a wall of flypaper. I am not the many books I have read, the advice I have taken or the idols I have looked up to.
When you look at me you see something that doesn't exist. When you look at me, a being is born in your mind. Between the two of us we have created something beautiful. When you look at me, you may see something beautiful, but it is only a portion of who I really am.
I would love to share with you the tiny piece of divinity that is me. I would love to pull you inside and show you where I keep my soul. I would love to show you that ball of light that sits beyond my body, beyond my conscious and subconscious mind. I would love for you to meet who I am really.
Perhaps it is easier than we think. Perhaps it is as easy as looking inside yourself. Perhaps you have seen me a thousand times nestled deep behind your own eyes. Perhaps we are all the same being.
I don't know for sure, but as I fly down the interstate at 80 mph, halfway between asleep and awake in the early morning hours, I suppose the only way that I can fully answer the question "who am I really?" is as simple as two little words:
I am.
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