Ghost in the Shell conversation between Major and The Puppetmaster:
I want some guarantee that I will be myself.
There isn’t one. Why would you want to? All things change in a dynamic environment. Your efforts to remain what you is what limits you.
Every time I find myself not wanting to do something or when I feel anxious about change, this conversation comes up in my life. I first think what the benefits are of retaining who I currently am. Secondly, I ask what it is that I attempt to remain. I answer the first question with a precarious statement; I collect ideas that I hold as values worth preserving. Fair to say that I am also a collection of ideas that I don’t necessarily hold as values worth preserving but are a part of me just the same. For the most part, I have to admit that the ideas that I choose to hold as values worth preserving have been beneficial to me in life. Often I am allowed to look at life in retrospect and be glad about how things turned out. I think that to have been a part of this or that or to be with this person or that person would mean that I would not be the person I am today. Knowing the things I do far outways the emotional comfort of satisfying emotional needs and feeding my intellect. When it comes to change, reevaluating these ideas is easy. Often the ideas talk about change within themselves. The problem occurs when it’s the ideas that I don’t hold as values that I have a hard time dealing with and making sense of.
We are as much a product of our environment as we are our naturing. We absorb learned behaviors and learned thinking until we reflect, the environment and environmental nature. When we attempt to change, we go back to that idea of “I want some guarantee that I will be myself.” We clammer to the things we know, comforting or fragile sense of self with something familiar. Often we return to the places and things we never thought we would return. In many, not all cases, people get caught up in a cycle of chaos and never have the chance to self-actualize or become self-aware, for they are too busy attempting to keep their life “Together.” Even in chaos, people can find a sense of peace and solitude. Only when the Merry-go-round stops and the music dies down, and people are left with their thoughts do they actually realize the silence is deafening to too much to handle. A vase intended to hold a beautiful bouquet really only holds onto the illusion.
When I feel that I feel I should be feeling that I should be feeling, I reminded myself of this conversation and why I ask myself. Why am I having these feelings, and what good does holding onto them in how and what I do for me? Secondly, I have to ask, is feeling and thinking how I am even conducive to the things I am trying to accomplish and the person I am trying to become. I have to remind myself that my path is precarious and different from anyone else’s. I am not competing for the same things or to be the same as everyone else. In those moments, the ideas that I hold onto comfort me knowing that there is more to life than meets the eye.
The thing about breaking from the idea of attempting to remain who you are and becoming something new isn’t something that everyone will understand. Not only will the adventure and journey change you, but it will change everyone around you to some degree. At times the journey can be lonely and seemingly fruitless, but Rome wasn’t built in a day, and the things you attempt are often only done by your own hand. You can not lose faith in your dream journey and the things you know to be true.
At sea, the Akagi is free to sail in any direction.
You cant move through life faster than a cherry blossom falls.
May a divine wind blow and fill my sails, carrying me to new beginnings.