what does it even mean to find yourself?
i don’t know. i know what it means for me, but i don’t know what that means for you. no one will ever know what that means for another person, but a lot of people think they do. especially with the internet there are so much this is how to do it, this is the key to success, and be like me rhetoric in content. even me saying you should think for yourself is a version of me telling you how to do the thing. nobody knows what to do. everyone is doing what works best for them. if it works for them, they’ll recommend you do it for yourself as well if you’re both striving for similar things. even if you aren’t. adults don’t know shit and they’re full of suggestions. often times, the advice or whatever is presented as a golden ticket. i love when people are honestly like, fuck dude, i don’t know how to be happy through your body but this is how happiness works in this body i’ve got over here. i feed the homeless and volunteer at animal shelters. my little brother does that. he volunteers at a cat shelter. i think that’s cool. i don’t do that. that doesn’t work for me and that’s okay. i do the former and i enjoy it. that’s something i found out about myself. see how that works? it’s like a puzzle.
i’ll say for me that finding myself has been a mix of learning mental or intellectual, emotional, physical, environmental, social, and spiritual (let’s just say for simplicity) likes and dislikes that i use as guidelines for how i live my life. for example, i have found through experience that i do not value the opinions of a certain group of people and so i do not adjust myself in any way to appeal to the opinions of said group. someone who values image and hierarchy wears high-end suits and drives expensive cars does not do so for the benefit of people outside of that community. it’s a who do you work for kind of thing. and i work for myself and my own morals and my health. when i work for myself, i work for you inadvertently. when i work for myself, i work to be gentle so that when i go out in the world, i have positive impacts on those around me. because i want the world to be better for the future generations, so to me that means being kinder. if i’m kind to someone, maybe they won’t beat their kid and that kid becomes someone helpful later on. maybe that kid might not bully that other kid and that kid might not die by suicide. i don’t want that to happen. i found out through having a parent that harmed me a lot that i don’t want to harm my kid. and i don’t want my kid harmed. so i work to be better and make a better world. see how it’s really self-serving? i work for me. i had to find myself to know that and act that way.
most likely people mean, by finding yourself, taking a career or hobby. on that front, i think choosing careers is a scam, a career chooses you through your natural inclinations. do what makes you happy is really shallow, but it’s true. i do this and this makes me happy. i follow my curiosity and end up doing whatever works. i could give a shit about how to make money, but i don’t. money finds its way to me somehow, and i’m always grateful for those windfalls. i’m a artist who didn’t think i would live past christmas 2010, then christmas every other year until 2018. then panicked about being alive graduating high school. so maybe i’m not the correct person to write about that. i imagine someone in high school taking chemistry really grasping molecular structure, then they read food labels, and look up (on their own time) the structures of different chemicals that make up a banana or whatever. that person should follow that curiosity and go into chemistry. perhaps there has to be some sort of awareness either from yourself or those around you. someone who can see where you are being pulled and can explicitly name it. if you don’t have that internal voice to do that, it’s okay to lean on others who do if they are willing to be that guiding voice for you and if you are willing to develop that voice within yourself. hobby-wise, i look into what natural inclinations i have that have stayed with me for years. like painting; i’ve painted all of my life and i always want to paint. i get sad when i don’t paint. i think about painting a lot. i think about drawing and writing a lot too. i’ve always been a maker, and so i make. for me, it’s more than a hobby. it’s just me. but if someone is looking for a hobby, i think that’s a good method of finding one that connects you to yourself.
if you stay up late, you learn you like to stay up late.
if you kiss a girl, sometimes you learn you don’t like doing that shit fr. (me too)
you learn if you do or do not like sports or westerns or the ocean or yourself by exposure.
trial and error. and your reaction to that exposure also gives you the opportunity to find out more about yourself. that’s deep though. not everybody is willing to meet themselves that far down.
ultimately, live life. live and learn. think and introspect sometimes. i think that there’s so much to being a human and not all of being a human being is about understanding the totality of your personality. your personality is always going to change, and not all of it is relevant to what’s going on in you and your life all of the time. which is fine. being a human isn’t all about you and finding yourself. i think that’s dumb. finding your style, finding your role, finding this ephemeral thing that promises to be there, fixed and unchanging, 100% of the time. a lot of people without homes lost it all on wall st. i think finding yourself is a series of insights from you simply being aware of what’s going on with you and your world and what decisions you make based on those two things. i ate a tomato and it tasted bad. there’s nothing wrong with the tomato though. i had tomato on a sandwich a few days ago, yuck. i don’t think i like tomatoes. weird. i liked them when i was younger. cool, you just found yourself again.
