The Cost of Being Me.

On breaking habits and defining ourselves.

Welcome back to Bluezone. Every Sunday, I send out a newsletter like this one or this one. To support my work, you can subscribe or make a one-time donation here.

It’s no secret that we are a conglomerate of our habits, thoughts, actions and beliefs. Yet, in the daydream that is life, we forget that we become all of this one day at a time. What are we but a vague set of words we attribute to ourselves? When we identify with a social group, vocation or philosophy, we cram ourselves, flesh and all, into a neat little box. 

‘You can’t put me put me in a box!’ I scream!— and yet my life fits so neatly into minutes, hours, weeks and years. My body fits into locations and my ideas into beliefs. 

Are we as indefinable as we think we are? 

Our worries, fears, wishes, obligations, hopes, dreams, failures, heartbreaks, successes, ideas, desires and needs cling to us like tight-fitting clothing for so long that it seems that they are us. They remain a part of us as long as we choose to keep them around. We need not. We can shed them the same way animals shed their fur if only we choose to see them for what they are. 

For a long time now, I have ignored a deep fear within me. Instead of looking at this seemingly unconquerable, unscalable mountain peak straight in the face, I believed I could lift myself up and around its throat-tightening enormity. I even justified it by thinking that instead of facing it, I could exceed its significance by floating past it entirely. It worked for a while. I aligned myself to an adjacent path, learned new skills and identified myself with a new me— one who was too good to notice or care for the path that led to that immobile mountain.

Yet this week, I was hit by a revelation. A breakthrough so spectacular it slapped me in the face and supplied me with a mouth full of gravel. The shock was so loud in its clarity that nothing was the same— I simply couldn’t kid myself any longer. 

Fractured desires of separate paths connected into a cohesive whole. Every road led back to that mountain. The fear was ever-pungent yet similarly sharper than it had ever been. It was clear it had to be scaled. There is no way around it unless I become a shadow and live a half-life, a fading life. 

For months, the path had shown itself to me in glimpses. The world will tease itself to you if you pay attention. I saw the signs yet convinced myself otherwise. ‘People like me, don’t do that,’ I would say to myself. ‘People will think I’ve lost it. It’ll be embarrassing’ —‘Embarrassment is the cost of entry,’ my housemate told me, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. If that’s all it takes to face the mountain and collapse halfway up its slithering slope, then maybe that’s not as bad as I think it is. If I can risk the embarrassment of getting up there and failing, then I can risk summiting, too. 

For the first time, I turned to face the jagged entirety of the mountain. I considered its unforgivable cliffs, its relation to me a million to one, and imagined myself on the peak of the summit. If I could transport myself to the top and subvert the route which led me there, I would feel like a fraud. It’s not about the summit. It’s about who I become on the way there. We can only become the person we wish to be if we pay the cost of entry— the risk of embarrassment— and take the first step. Once we’re moving, we’re no longer thinking about the summit. We’re just moving. Left foot, right foot. 

This newsletter is the culmination of consistent action. Four months before hitting publish on my first post, my evidence for ‘work done’ was note-taking, brainstorming, talking, dreaming, and imagining. I can tell you now; I have nothing to show for it. Yet ever since that first weekly ‘publish’— I haven’t stopped for 28 weeks. I don’t have time to dwell too long on how embarrassing something is or what people think because, guess what— every Sunday, a post needs to be published. Every Sunday, I’m a little higher on that mountain.

It’s obvious, so simple, so blindingly clear and yet incredibly profound when I truly stop and think about it. We become who we are, one day at a time. Every belief we hold about ourselves is accepted and ingrained one day at a time. In the same way, it can be let go one day at a time. It’s all a construct.

Imagine the life you want. Craft an image in your mind of who you’d like to be, how you’d like to feel, how you’d want to act, and everything that comes with it. Then, pay the cost of entry— risk embarrassment—and live a life created by you. And remember,

“You are under no obligation to be the same person you were five minutes ago.”

— Alan Watts

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It’s been a pleasure to interact with some of you on here and to read the incredible talent and creative energy that packs itself into the app that is Substack. I would love to be more specific on the exact fear that I’m facing, but instead of telling you, I’d much rather show you in the coming weeks. If there is a fear that you’re facing or a creative hurdle that seems too big to overcome, feel free to reach out. Sometimes, the biggest fears fester in our minds and dissolve once they're spoken about with someone else. At the least, I’d be happy to listen, and at best, I can offer a new perspective.

See you soon.

-IL.