The art of being one self

"Every one is a genius. But if you judge a fish by it's ability to climb a tree, it will live it's whole life, believing it is stupid." - Albert Einstein

"Please let me help you, so you don't down, said the monkey to the fish, helping him safely up a tree" - Alan Watts.

The idea is that we are all unique, incomparable. Equal in value, but unique in expression.

I mean this to be meaning we all have abilities that no one has ever seen before. Not even the person with the ability. Abilities that can be developed into talents, when nurtured.

And the only real way to find out what that is, is be one self.

Right now, there are things that is possible, that has never been possible before. Never have for instance, all the atoms in the universe been in this particular arrangement ever before, and never will they be so again. (although "never" is a very long time, so there is no true way to tell).

What is at any given moment possible, is in the true scheme of things, Unknowable. So to say things like "that's impossible", or "I can't do that", is something one believe. Not something that can truly be known.

Now perhaps the challenge in proving everyone is a genius, is to do so, you need a way to measure it. Some thing to compare it up against. And I'm here trying to prove that no such measurement exists.

And when we fictitiously invent any such measurement systems, we reduce any form if genius that does not fit into that system to a dumb person. Like the well known IQ tests, witch discards the intelligence of a dancer, or being social, or any number of things.

This point then of course makes a hard case for any form of competing, where you have a limiting set of rules. Like school test scores or sports.

One can then, with a panel of judges, judge people an idiot based on their own set of values. Like a dancer would be an idiot based on him or her's performance in math.

The value of the dancers love of dance is untouchable. No test, or measurement can ever say if the dancers love to dance, is more or less then anyone else. And even if it could, what would such a value be?

To me, the ones that can't love what they do; compete. Because if you do love what you do, your to occupied with what your doing, to care if anyone else does it better or not.

I think, maybe one of the most popular ideas against being you self, all though it in no way have to be, is earning a living. Making money.

"one cannot just do whatever one wants, one must make a living, one must survive". Or some such.

But under such a "pressure" it would be a true challenge to find ones own unique genius expression in life.  To use so much time and effort against being one self.

When one does not give this idea to much of a value, to be more ones true authentic core self, one would find that one have hidden talents that screams to be expressed.

The idea is, that when one do what one wants, with integrity, one becomes better and better at it, and sooner or later you will have something unique that no one has ever seen. And there is always someone interested in something.

Or the absurd fear of being strange, weird, odd. And of course being one self, one is destined to be odd. Because by definition, being normal, is to try and be like everyone else, and since everyone is unique and un-comparable, that is an impossibility. And thus, quite insane.

What I think would be more sane, is to be natural, rather than normal. Naturally your self.

It's perhaps a pity that it's not normal that we are all strange. Since we all are regardless.

In some sense, it is impossible to not be one self, since whatever act one plays, IS an act oneself is playing. But I mean here, doing things that goes against what we want for our self. That makes us feel disempowered.

So why is it an art to be one self?

We are all our self from time to time. Or else we would not even understand the expression. Like when we say, "with that person I can be my self" or "when I'm on vacation, I can be my self."

One is not competing with anyone, one is not trying to be more that one is, like what ever one is, is not enough, simply by being. One is not afraid of being judged unfit in some way. One fits in perfectly. And there are no conditions needing to be met.

It's in this state of being, one is the most sane. It is also the state of being that fosters creativity.

For creativity has it's own rhythm. It's own timing. It does not work well under the timing of a conveyor belt time. It comes spontaneously of it's own, when one is relaxed, and lets go of "I should".

This is why so many greats ideas is born on the toilet, or in bed just before one fall asleep.

I believe the western school system is much to blame for killing creativity, but need not be, and is not in many parts of the world.

In school you are often if not always, doing whatever you do, for another reason, that to just do what you do. Like you do a paper, not because you love to do papers, but to get a good grade, and you get a good grade, to get a good job, and you are doing a good job to get payed, and you get payed so you can do what you want, but you can't just do what you want because you need to work to get payed.

In other words, we then, in this system, learn that in order to do what you want, you have to do what you don't want. Witch is a very inefficient way of going about things. It nearly never get's you there. While at the same time, you are always here. In this system, we would eat a meal to not starve, rather than eating a meal, because eating a meal is good.

This is the mysterious play, that gets lost as we grow older. A kid would play because playing is fun. A grown up would play, because playing is good for you, and to be quite frank, that's not playing, that's work.

So in schools then, we learn this conformity idea we call being normal. And spend almost no time on trying to figure out what makes us unique and special. What our true talents are. We in other words, paradoxically, don't learn how to learn. Just how to repeat.

So the real question I then want to ask everyone is:

What must you believe is true, in order to choose to think it serves you to not be yourself?