This is the question my therapist has given me to mull over for the weekend. I’ve been instructed to abandon any association with a career, just who I am outside of that.
Fuck if I know is the thing. I wanted to go with analyst, because my greatest desire is to understand and interpret. Yet, isn’t that still a career goal? I enjoy nature, and also working with my hands, and stretching my brain to grow my ability.
The problem is that my ambition is a way that I hide from the questions I don’t want to ask. Questions like “what if I don’t go back to paying work?”
Then there is the precarious position my spiritual life has come to. I used to believe whole hog in Christianity. Lately I think I’ve become an agnostic. I’m relatively sure that there is more going on in this universe than mankind is aware of. I’m also of the opinion that if there is a god, he or she probably doesn’t care about the day to day desires of human hearts. I seek, but I also recoil. I’ve come to hate passivity and subservience, they are the paving stones of authoritarian regimes.
Then again, I’m so tired. I don’t want to push anymore, or care for that matter.
I am tempted by nihilism, where nothing is worthy, and no one meaningful. I could fit into that, it baffles me that humans continue to reproduce when our culture so clearly dislikes the vast majority of humanity.
9 comments
I’ve struggled with self-identity as well, for my whole life. There are times I’ve said, “who am I to ask ‘who am I'”? From an outside perspective, you seem like a highly intelligent, straitfoward individual; someone who thinks deeply, even about their own thinking. An analyst might be an accurate description. But does such adjectives even matter? What makes a person themselves? I look at Kurt Cobain, for example, who built an amazing life for himself, and yet still ended his own life. He had everything people associate with success, and more. But he still didn’t like himself. I think the point is that, what makes us ourselves has nothing to do with external values. Who we are isn’t what we do or even think. Who we are as people is what we ALREADY are, intrinsically. In other words, if we subtract the mental constructs like careers, relationships, cars, money, sex, etc. which people think makes someone more or less worthy as people, what’s left?
Ultimately, these are questions only you can answer yourself, but I hope this may have stimulated some thought for you. Best of luck
Any therapist Ive ever come in contact with was an idiot.
What a stupid thing to tell a person to do. Ponder ‘who am I’, all weekend, -and leave out anything about career!
God, it’s no wonder so many people remain confused for so long. With people like that trying to help the lost.
Careers are obviously important, but even people with them can be unhappy. They don’t make us who we are.
I wasn’t implying they do.
To tack that condition on just adds more stupidity to the exercise.
Well, I’m curious, why mention careers at all then, in relation to an exercise about who someone is?
I was mocking the therapist.
And by the way, Mountaingoat, you can say therapists are idiots, but here we all are on SP, which isn’t much of an alternative. Therapists only give direction. We have to navigate the path and do the work ourselves for it to work. If every one you’ve found was an idiot, I’d keep looking, not give up on it. Best wishes
No thanks.
Who am I? Is a great and common question in buddhism. The answer for them is really that, you just dont exist altogether. In buddhism, career, titles, experience mean nothing. You are simply a living organism having a human experience. Even your name is a mental construct.
Just a wave that’s apart of the ocean. That can either be seen as enlightening or depressing. Depending on your perspective.