“The only thing keeping you from being great is yourself.” -Black Swan. 

It’s strange that I should return to the blog with such a different perspective than than with which I started writing. But I’m back, a new year, new resolutions. The primary of those resolutions is working to be truest to myself, by abandoning myself to pure self without context or judgment or any inner defeatist, ego-boosting or other dialogue,  and then being able to project that to others and stand up for myself.  No one ever had to apologize for being honest, no one ever had to apologize for being one’s self, nothing bad ever came from living life as you believe it.

The philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti stressed the need to abandon one’s self completely to live a pure life:

“Every movement of thought every action demands energy. Whatever you do or think needs energy, and this energy can be dissipated through conflict, through various forms of unnecessary thought, emotional pursuits and sentimental activities. Energy is wasted in conflict which arises in duality, in the “me” and the “not-me”, in the division between the observer and the observed, the thinker and the thought. When this wastage is no longer taking place there is a quality of energy which can be called an awareness - an awareness in which there is no evaluation, judgement, condemnation or comparison but merely an attentive observation, a seeing of things exactly as they are, both inwardly and outwardly, without the interference of thought, which is the past.

…It is so easy to deceive oneself, so easy to convince oneself of anything at all. The feeling that one must be something is the beginning of deception, and, of course, this idealistic attitude leads to various forms of hypocrisy. What makes illusion? Well, one of the factors is this constant comparison between what is and what should be, or what might be, this measurement between the good and the bad - thought trying to improve itself, the memory of pleasure, trying to get more pleasure, and so on. It is this desire for more, this dissatisfaction, which makes one accept or have faith in something, and this must inevitably lead to every form of deception and illusion. It is desire and fear, hope and despair, that project the goal, the conclusion to be experienced. Therefore this experience has no reality. All so-called religious experiences follow this pattern. The very desire for enlightenment must also breed the acceptance of authority, and this is the opposite of enlightenment. Desire, dissatisfaction, fear, pleasure, wanting more, wanting to change, all of which is measurement - this is the way of illusion…” (Excerpted from: http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/krishnamurti-teachings/view-text.php?tid=5&chid=495

So why did I start this post with a quote from Black Swan - a movie that many have found to be a horror movie, a suspense thriller, overall a disturbing movie? In the movie, the main character is perfect at being “herself” as the white swan, in an arguably dissatisfying life where she glosses over her impulses, her happiness in order to tenaciously pursue her dream of being the lead in Swan Lake.  Only, the director instructs her that she must emulate the Black Swan as well, that she must get in touch with that part of herself that she had otherwise been denying.  The first glimpse of her being in touch with herself completely is when she is metaphorically like a dog trapped in a corner, and she literally bites.  That is a glimpse into the part of her she has heretofore been rejecting! 

Only when the main character starts going crazy, letting go of her self, only then does she become great.  With the world falling apart around her, she knows what she wants,  identifies the one constant within her, and though it turns into a horror movie, there is such a quiet and sublime beauty in her insanity.  The quest for perfection is at the core of her being, and she doesn’t ever articulate it (until the end) because she doesn’t need to - it is achieved because she becomes all parts of herself at once, so perfectly.  The bittersweet beauty of the movie is that she doesn’t go insane, it is precisely that she accepts who she is without judgment or memory or anything else in order to truly live.  In order to do this she has to make an ultimate sacrifice - not even her life, not even the world she had known, but her entire sense of reality, her existence in the context of the rest of the world. 

Well, at first I thought that there must be something wrong with me because, despite all the horror and suspense, my take away was something so calming:

What is crazy?  Being true to yourself as the world around you falls apart? Or being true to the world around you when denying your own being?

I’m opting for the former this year.  I believe my constant, my core, is good.  But regardless, should the world fall apart around me, at least I know I’m living my life honestly, from the inside out, and not the other way around. 

I’m curious to see what happens.  I am a little crazy, but I prefer to believe that arises from a quirky joi de vivre.  And this resolution may lead to a year with a bit more conflict, but that conflict will be external as I express as clearly as I can to the outside world who I am on the inside.  Those who do not understand or care to understand that may see this expression as apathy, meanness, or even craziness, but it is none of that.  It is honesty and decency from the inside out, the absolution of inner conflict.  And those in my life who have already accepted me for what I am and who I am in all situations as I have struggled with the conflict of pleasing others, living the dreams of others, worrying about judgment from within or without - all who have seen this in the past, will not have to worry, the only repercussion is that they see the person they have come to know, in a more consistent and clear manner…