Ethan’s Experience [he/him]

Who Am I?

I am a prisoner of my own devising. Trapped in the rules and expectations that we and others teach ourselves. I trudge through this urban jungle asking myself if I’m doing enough, not realising the self sabotage built into my road of thorns. 

I start to see the thorns that I foraged for my path. The self harm that we endure for the promise of success and happiness. But who said happiness could only be attained through hard work and suffering?

Before there was a path, there was play. Play is not a path, it is a compass. But the journey it guides you on is not towards a goal or towards attaining something. It’s a journey inward, towards understanding and loving the self. There are no paths in a playground, just ground. Do you dare to let play ground you?

What About Others?

How selfish of you, I chastise myself. What about others? What about their stories? Don’t they matter too?

They do! They are playmates. All playing their own games. We create our own meaning when we play with them, but the meaning they derive may differ from us. Play is the bridge and movement is the foundation on which the bridge stands. 

But how do you connect with others if you don’t know the rules of their game? How can I play their game with them? You don’t.

You play your’s. Somewhere down the line, it becomes our game. With its own set of rules and fun. 

But how do I get there? I don’t know, you just play until you do.

Is that really connecting or understanding someone if you don’t know the meaning of play to other people? You speak as if connection is a goal. But do we ever truly know or understand anyone fully?

The Unknown

When you work on the self, you come across lots of paradoxes. The more lost you are, the closer you are to finding yourself. The more scary something is, the more you will learn and grow from it. The more that you learn, the less you really know. The more you try to find meaning in connection, the more you lose your own meaning.

How does one navigate a space that is full of paradoxes? The reality is, you can’t. Because there will never be a clear path or end goal in self exploration, it is both liberating and debilitating. There is only trust (or faith). Trust in yourself, and trust in the process.

It does beg the question, if working on the self is so amorphous and intangible, why do we bother trying to embark on this process? And to that my answer is, why not?