The Core It can take a whole lifetime to become yourself.
Years of feeling adrift and alone.
Acting in a role you were never meant to play.
Stammering in a language you weren't meant to speak.
Wearing clothes that don't fit.
Trying to pass yourself off as normal,
But always feeling clumsy and unnatural.
Like a stranger pretending to be at home.
Knowing that everyone can sense your strangeness and resent you because they know you don't belong.
But slowly,
Through years of exploration,
You see landmarks that you recognise.
Hear vague whispers that seem to make sense.
Strangely familiar words,
As if you had spoken them yourself.
And ideas that resonate deep down,
As if you already knew them.
And slowly,
Your confidence grows.
You walk faster,
Sensing the right direction.
Feeling the magnetic pull of home.
And now you begin to excavate,
To peel away the layers of conditioning.
To shed the skins of your flimsy false self.
To discard those habits and desires that you absorbed.
Until you reach the solid rock beneath,
The shining,
Molten core of you.
And now there's no more uncertainty.
Your path is clear,
Your course is fixed.
This bedrock of your being is so firm and stable,
That there's no need for acceptance,
No fear of exclusion or ridicule.
Everything you do is right and true,
Deep and whole,
With authenticity.
But don't stop.
This is only the halfway point,
Maybe even just the beginning.
Once you've reached the core,
Keep exploring but more subtly.
Keep excavating but more delicately.
And you'll keep unearthing new layers,
Finding new depths.
Until you reach the point that is no point,
Where the core dissolves.
And the solid rock melts like ice.
And the self loses its boundary,
And expands to encompass the whole.
A self even stronger and truer,
Because it's no self at all.
A self you had to find,
So that you could lose it.
