On truth
“Suddenly I realize that the dichotomy between the false self and the authentic self that all these recovery people talk about is meaningless. […] A better way o think about it is the destructive self and the creative self: the you that damages your life and the lives of others, and the you that brings forth the best in yourself, is connected to others, and is in harmony with the world around you.” - Neil Strauss, The Truth
A couple weeks ago I traveled to White Plains, New York for a networking and training event for the software I support in my day job. While at the event, I was able to spend some in person time with a colleague with whom I primarly interact via phone and work chat app. During a break, I told him a story from my personal life; upon its conclusion, he said to me, “You know, Erin, not everyone notices everything you do. I wouldn’t call attention to things like this - it can make you appear neurotic.”
Without missing a beat, I responded “But, I am neurotic,” which prompted surprised laughter from him. I continued, “Last year, I searched every crevice of myself. I see it all; I find no value in hiding.”
I spoke more about this journey in a previous post and why I have emerged feeling the most peaceful and powerful I ever have.
Courage is something that comes naturally to me in a lot of areas - I’m sure I’ve taken years off my parents’s lives with the cheerful abandon I have when it comes to physical feats, travel adventures, questionable apartments in emerging neighborhoods, and engaging interesting strangers in deep comversations; but it took decades to summon the courage to begin this honest self-examination.
A book that was incredibly helpful to me was Neil Strauss’s The Truth. This “searingly honest and compulsively readable” book is not for the prudish (for example: you will read several explicit recounts of sexual forays). However, under the titillating (mis)adventures, the deep self-reflection he did while on a quest to understand love and relationships prompted me to take up a similar one. Here is a man who is willing to put it all out there for the world to read; surely, I could do the same, for myself.
What’s an area of your life that you avoid shining a light upon? What are you trying to keep in the shadowy recesses? Can you practice courage and, even momentarily, illuminate them?
