Self Expression

One of the principle tasks of the child of a narcissist (or in my own case narcissists) is to develop a sense of self.  What do you like?  What do you dislike?  Nobody ever asked me that question with regard to the important parts of life.  I never asked myself.  Life became this very heavy, very unpleasant task of endurance, of tolerating deep and violent internal conflicts between the fake self I developed to fit in, outwardly, both in my home and the world, and an unknown, dark real self, which has within it the capacity for self expression, for taste, for opinion, for genuine, deep pleasure and communion.

It is very common for me, since in part I am trying to reconcile my own experience with that of others, to see to what extent my own tasks are those of others.  Pondering this, it occurs to me that in almost all times and place, in almost all cultures, the task of “self expression”–which in my mind is an almost defining example of American individualism–has been absent.  Only in the Renaissance, if memory serves, did people begin signing their work in Europe, and I doubt anything in Cambodia or Tibet, or a hundred other places has any names on it at all even now.

We are all unique, and my view is that our task is to learn to get in touch with our own sensibilities, and learn to be creative and loving in how we express them.  Only now, only in a time and place where the very real dangers and difficulties of life have been largely mitigated even for the poor, can we dream of a world in which everyone is afforded this opportunity.

There is so much hate in this world.  There is so much lying on the part of people who should know better, like our supposedly best educated.  This may continue for a thousand years, but it will not continue forever.  The universe does have laws.