Instagram is The Magician. The OG trickster. The sleight of hand illusionist. Instagram (and WordPress and most of the rest of the internet) does a bang up job of making it appear that everyone else has got it all worked out, everyone else knows exactly who they are, everyone else’s brand is always on brand.
But the magician only shows you what she wants you to see.
For those of you unsure just who you are, for those of you wary of the brands, for those of you waking up most days with a whole different vision of your life, who go camping for one night, fall in love with nature and commit then and there to an exciting, off-the-grid life of wood nymphery, then go see a play the next night and question why you ever gave up on that acting career because you were good, after all, you had potential, and people really liked you!
I want you to know I see you, fellow wanderer. I feel you. And I want you to remember…
You are.
That’s it. Not another thing belongs in that sentence.
You are. And that is enough.
How amazing is that?
I usually congratulate people when they tell me, ‘I don’t know who I am anymore.’ Then they look perplexed and ask, ‘Are you saying it is a good thing to be confused?” I ask them… What does it mean to be confused? ‘I don’t know’ is not confusion. Confusion is: ‘I don’t know, but I should know’ or ‘I don’t know, but I need to know.’ Is it possible to let go of the belief that you should or need to know who you are? In other words, can you cease looking to conceptual definitions to give you a sense of self? Can you cease looking to thought for an identity? When you let go of the belief that you should or need to know who you are, what happens to confusion? Suddenly it is gone. When you fully accept that you don’t know, you actually enter a state of peace and clarity that is closer to who you truly are than thought could ever be. Defining yourself through thought is limiting yourself.
Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
*Image of Le Bateleur from Yves Reynaud‘s restoration of Pierre Madenie’s Tarot de Marseille, 1709
