If you want to sing out, sing out

Authenticity. How do we know, let alone become, the true self that breathes freely (or so I imagine) every moment? If there were not incidents, if there was never a glimpse of how it felt to be a creature without adhesions binding it to scars of the past. The scars may not even be real, or may not be the result of factual events. Surely I am not the only one who identifies with The Manchurian Candidate, unknowingly, perhaps unintentionally programmed for destructive acts triggered by a phase of the moon, a handful of words, brain chemistry gone momentarily askew, fatigue, disappointment.

We are our own potholes, we are the cracks in the sidewalk in which we catch our toes. There is power in that simple knowledge. And better still if the awareness comes when we have not just stumbled, when it arrives as an epiphany, like waking up this morning and wondering when vast segments of humanity became distracted from living their own lives by slavish devotion to professional sports. I am in the process of giving myself aching muscles about the neck and shoulders as I try to pull the Lakers, arm over arm, out of the funk they slid into before the regular season ended. At the same time I am not confused about whether their victories or defeats have anything to do with me, getting my car smog-certified, writing a blog post or seeing who has new designs of Japanese masking tape at the best price (it may be trivial, but it is MY trivia).

It is a daily, circular-seeming joust, this discarding of falsehoods, disposing of what only hinders so that we can take up the bouquets arriving at our own stage doors, those heady blossoms which we walk past, assuming they were delivered to someone else. Every day, an authentic stitch added to the sampler. We may, eventually, be able to see the whole picture.