I have a real problem with being old and unsuccessful, though I see both as natural consequences. Actually, I have no problem with either of these on some level, but unfortunately I’m dependent on my own abilities to make a living.

It’s funny however that, although I feel this way today, I’ve always had a problem with myself - even when I was young and one couldn’t deem me as unsuccessful yet. All this has contributed to my loss of knowing who I am, because confronting my self is painful.

Falling from 35,000 feet

Yesterday I read a bizarre article about how to survive falling out of a jetliner at cruising altitude. It’s not one of your typical experiences, mind you, but it’s one of the scariest thought experiments I can imagine. The chances I will undergo such an experience is nearly nill, as well as my chances of surviving (think of MH 17). Nevertheless, the article, which seemed authoritative enough, gave tips on both what to do and what to avoid during the long fall. At the end is a description of the final impact, where your rate of fall is only 120 mph.

This article stayed with me literally the entire day. Perhaps it’s because I similarly feel that I’m in a death dive in my life. When I look at my way of thinking and how it’s hampered me, endangering my relationships and career chances, it’s really unclear where I’ll be in the next 10 years.

I’ve nearly reached the point of impact. Like one guy mentioned in the article, a tail gunner or pilot in a bomber blown up in WWII, I’ve smoked my cigarette on the way down, admiring the scenery in contemplative thought. My experience of falling and final impact is not only lonely, but it was initiated by violence (somehow) and by an event that wasn’t supposed to happen.

And yet here I am. According to the article, you might survive if one of a couple of things happens: you land in plush, deep snow; you land on a tree exactly where the branches radiate from the trunk (and not on the trunk itself or too far out on the branches); you are able to successfully execute the skydiver’s five-point landing and roll.

I have something confess though. For me, the impact on the ground has not only to do with being splattered in a gooey mess on the pavement. It’s also my final reckoning, which has nothing to do with physical survivability. Impact and death are how I equate finding my identity.

Gone but not forgotten

Once upon a time, when I was young and naive, I went to a psychoanalyst who used outdated and ill-fated techniques to ferret out my core issues. This analyst was of the opinion that I had lost something valuable long ago. At the time, I understood this to mean either my “mother figure” who abandoned me in childhood, my own identity, or both (I had to supply this reasoning since I was paying the analyst too much to tell me the answers).

If she meant “my identity” then I must agree with her. Today it’s simply too painful and exhausting to try to understand who I am, and the exercise is downright intolerable in social situations. Nevertheless something is hiding and I know it’s there. In other words, despite being scary and unknown and covered in blood, my identity does exist. I know it because every day it reminds me of it’s presence.

In a way my daily existence is very simple to describe. Imagine poles thrust into the ground about 10 yards apart. Next, stretch a thick rope or line, wide enough for you to easily walk on but a little bit off the ground, between these poles until it’s taut. Now, one pole means your “true identity” (or at least any consistent way of living or feeling from day to day), and the other pole is a fabricated persona. Getting on this contraption, the vast majority of people will immediately gravitate toward the “true identity” pole and even hug it. In my youth I decided to hug the “fake persona” pole but now I gravitate towards the other pole. But in practice, I’m balancing somewhere between the two poles.

I’ve thoroughly learned my lesson on hugging a fake persona. It just doesn’t work, believe me. If you think it works and need to hang on for a while longer, you can do so (to survive) but it will leave a wake of desolation in your life almost before you realize it. Problem is, when I was 12, I didn’t realize this, instead believing it would bring me success.

Finding “true identity”

Today I’ve lived most of my life and have gained the gift of perspective. Perspective is what separates the men from the boys. My life has been a struggle but I must go on a bit longer.

I never would have self-identified with some new age fanatic or anything like that, but must pursue self-discovery by other means. First off, my destiny does not consist of relying on someone else to solve my problems (like my father or an analyst). The danger of relying on someone with their own agenda is simply too great. Secondly, yoga and meditative practices have been around for ages for a good reason. I used to dismiss these practices out of hand but tactical breathing is the best way (I know of) to get in touch with my core and the disturbances it’s undergoing. Thirdly, the name of the game is self-help. No one has an interest in solving my problems because it has to do with something inside of me. Moreover, I’ve created this blog as a form of kátharsis.

I guess my greatest wish, if ever it would be granted, would be to join the social body of humankind and contribute to it in any way I could. Did you know that when we form our identities in early childhood, it’s the role of other humans to initiate us into self-awareness and -acceptance by validating our feelings? If your parents were simply not there for any reason, you miss out on this formative potential and are emotionally “incomplete.”

Most people reading this have probably never thought of any of this and that’s fine (what a luxury). But other less privileged souls must make an effort in areas that they shouldn’t have to. For me, it’s consciousness of my “social weakness” (meaning, strange social behavior at times) and learning to tolerate it. Being weak and admitting to it (i.e., allowing myself to feel weakness) in front of strangers who may reject me is as terrifying as falling through the sky without a parachute.

And what’s at the end, when my body hits the ground? Sudden darkness? (Sorry for these terrifying thoughts, dear reader: it’s only a thought exercise.)

Alright, enough of this talk. Here’s what I really want: to hear and be myself (i.e., live out what’s at my core) in the presence of strangers, no matter the feelings of sadness, pain, and anxiety that well up and threaten to destabilize me. At this point in my life, as I have less and less to lose, I am even willing to face my own fears of demise to try to get what I want.