My thoughts are not my own

Hi Reader,

A few weeks ago my email mentioned two stories: that of hiding, and that of growing. Today I’m picking up that second thread.

It’s a bit frustrating when I sit down to write these emails to you. My current world of family and babies means I have a lot of time to think and very little time to write. There’s so much I want to share with you and scant few words in which to do it. There’s nothing wrong here; it’s simply the season of life I’m in. But it’s good to notice that I continue to want to write more. It helps me, and I hope in some way it helps you, too. And seasons always change.

When I first sat down to write today, I couldn’t remember what that other story was that I mentioned back in December. Having looked it up now, I don’t specifically recall what thoughts I had about growing, or how they related to hiding. But what came to me to write about was the thought I shared in the subject line: my thoughts are not my own.

This phrase expresses something that’s been on my mind recently, I think related to what I’ve written the last few weeks about hiding.

What I want you to think is that I’m an original thinker, clever, insightful, perhaps even poignant from time to time.

But that’s hiding behind the subtext.

If I’m honest, I must admit that all the ideas that fill these emails, my book, and even thoughts I share in conversation with friends and family come from someone else. A book I read, or an earlier conversation. I sometimes wonder if anything that comes from my lips or my fingertips is original, is of me.

I can see that in a very basic way this can’t be the case. Each and every word I’ve ever uttered or penned I learned from someone else. And they, in turn, learned from someone before them. From this perspective, there is no original thought; only recycled and reorganized idea-bits, tumbling forward through whatever idea-space is, bumping up against each other, briefly sticking and clumping before coming unglued once again in some new mind, fresh fodder for future formulation. My thoughts are the thoughts of people long dead.

I could take that perspective as tragic. Perhaps it’s the reason I have the desire to pretend to originality: because I’m sad and afraid of the notion that I’m just an idea-puppet.

But I’m choosing instead to look at this from the perspective of connection. The fact that my thoughts occur as a link in an unbroken chain of thought reaching back into the mists of the past is really quite romantic. If everything we see and think and experience is really some kind of ongoing echo of the original mysterious bang that started everything, then what an honor it is to be able to recognize my own divine role in moving this little piece forward, just a scooch.

And so we come to growing.

Part of my growth is coming into a fuller realization of what I just expressed. As I live my life, I encounter more and more echoes of thoughts and ideas, take them into myself, filter through them and choose (or have chosen for me) which to pass along. I grow simply by being, and by being open to receiving. (I wonder to what degree being open and not hiding overlap.)

But part of my growth is in realizing that idea I expressed earlier—that something might be of me—must actually be at least somewhat illusory. There is no me. I am just a handful of thoughts and feelings passing through a borrowed lump of cosmic dust organized by a planet that is a living and holy thing, the true mother of all known life.

As such, my growth is inseparably a part of the growth of everything. There is no distinction between me and that. Without me, there is no that. Without that, there is no me. This, too, is not a new idea. Perhaps it is the oldest idea, born when first the universe or reality or God or whatever you want to call it, came to recognize itself by coming to life.

Perhaps that is what I am. Simply life. Perhaps that is what you—what we together—are, floating through space at this place and time.

My thoughts are not my own. They were shared with me by those who came before. I am honored to, in my turn, share them with you here. I hope they serve you well, scant as they may be.