One of the greatest challenges in my life was truly working through the issues of who I am. It's a search that has taken me to the ends of the earth and possibly beyond; it's a never-ending quest for an answer I may never truly have. I've found, however, that my biggest problem is that I tend to define myself by what I am not, rather than by what I am.
-I'm not a genius; I don't have the brainpower some people have.
-I'm not a musician, not nearly as talented as some people I know.
-I'm not a writer; several people have far better gifts than I have.
-I'm not ... well, there are so many things that I'm not that I don't have time to list them all.
But when we do that, we miss the moments. We miss those things that define who we are. Our sense of self is a positive thing, not a negative thing. Self-image is something that is built.
We tend to think of it as sculpting a person out of a block of marble. I contend that this is an inherently destructive analogy, because, like marble, tapping too hard in one place or another shatters the person and breaks them, never to be recovered. If you build an image of yourself from a composite block that you then chisel down, you are left with a person who is never growing, only diminishing. While Christian scholars might contend that this is a good thing based on John 3:30, I have no interest in arguing that point, although I think I could argue against such an idea rather well. Perhaps I flatter myself in doing so; perhaps not.
Rather consider the analogy of a set of building blocks, each a slightly different size, perhaps a different shape. As we experience lives that are unique and irreplaceable, we assemble those building blocks in a unique manner. Talents are stacked upon talents; skills upon life experiences that no other person can truly match. Each person becomes a work of art not only in the physical, but in the mental sense. It is this aspect of the ideal that appeals most to me.
Perhaps you have heard the saying that we are the sum of our experiences. Some people say rather that we are the sum of our scars. Either way, this is a summation, not a subtraction.
I suppose the contention then would be that to deny someone a particular experience is to deny them a possibly critical building block of their structure of self-image. Yet when God or fate or luck or circumstance or whatever you want to call it does so, do we take such offense? How then are we able to be angered by someone whose actions intrude on our own desires, especially if they truly believe that they are helping us or attempting to do so?
Some people do take such offense. But these are the major ideas -- death, loss, breaking up. The minor things we don't even think about. "Oh, that didn't work out. I didn't get to the store today." It's never a big deal until it involves ripping a piece of our carefully constructed sculpture out. Yet we're not ripping that piece out, are we? When something happens to it, it doesn't cease to exist. It's changed, rather; it becomes something different than what it was, and to that end the sculpture, once assembled, is permanent. Perhaps this is the greatest argument for carefully considering your actions and where they will lead you. Is the consequence of this truly something you want permanently embedded in the towering composition that is your self-image?
Denying someone the ability to add a specific block to their image is something that happens all the time. Your piano class interferes with soccer practice? Pick one or the other -- it can't be both. This is not an uncommon occurrence; neither should it be a source of anger or despair when a human is responsible for that interference, unless done from spite or malice. It is not, however, my purpose to go into such detail. For now, I leave you to ponder this: humans must be held responsible for their actions, but cannot be held responsible for the ripples that such actions create. Joseph McCarthy may be held responsible for the hundreds or thousands of lives that were disrupted during the Red Scare of the 1950s, yet he cannot be held responsible for seemingly inspiring John Ashcroft, Tom Ridge, and George W. Bush to follow his example in the wake of 11 September 2001.
It is perhaps most telling that who we see when we stare into the mirror is completely different from the person who stares back from the surface.
-David
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