Feb 17, 2024

when you have metamorphosised

everything changes once you start discovering yourself.

1 #

You're 15, 16, 17 or whatever years old, and you're walking that path you've always walked, and suddenly you start discovering yourself. You start defining your individuality. The path which you used to always walk changes and you start walking the untrodden, unharmed path.

Then everything changes. Your timetable, your personality, you. You grow out of love with things and you meet new people. It's just the cycle of life. You start getting consumed by your work, by your passion and your interests. You start to learn more about the world. You start to understand the limitations and the advantages of living that life. You start to cuss at the system. You start to realize that things might be better if you did this or that. You start cussing at your past self for not having this epiphany earlier. You start reading, writing and fuelling your curiosity. And you become a workaholic.

Sometimes things fall apart. You get in conflicts with yourself. You cannot decide what you want. You cannot seem to understand why you're supposed to do X and Y and Z, why you're giving an exam that doesn't really matter, why you're fighting with your parents, why you're not talking to someone, or talking more with someone. You sometimes get upset, because you don't get to do the things you want.

You start exploring and you start devouring those uncharted territories. You start to like this life, this new life. You've killed your past self and now you feel like a completely different person. You have shed your skin, you've grown out of, you know, the shell or whatever. You have metamorphosised. You hate your past self, you cringe and you feel as though you have just woke up from a nightmare. That's the thing about discovering oneself.

2 #

Maybe people are surprised and don't like this. And they think it's harming you because you're "wasting" too much time into exploring and that shit. Sometimes you doubt yourself and feel that you should not be doing this. But then again, the other part of you tells that you should, and that's important.

Once you get past that stage, once you start becoming more aware of your actions and of the world, it becomes as though you're living a different life. As if you're seeing things through a third person perspective. You see things out of the ordinary, you're not blind anymore and now you can see colors. That's the thing about discovering yourself.

You start reading about Stoicism, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus and those who came before us. You pour yourself compulsively into what Dostoevsky said, what Kafka said, what Camus said and you study those great thinkers. You discover philosophy and morality. You try building your own ideology, your own set of ideals that you run by, sort of mental model. And then you go insane. A good kind of insane.

You start writing about your life and your ideals because you realise that this world needs change. It's dystopic, Kafkaesque and because YOU, can bring change. You seek people who share a similar mindset. You try to create a movement, against all odds. It's a pity you thought it would be easy. But do you stop? Hell no, you go on and you keep putting effort into the things that you really love. That's the thing about discovering yourself.

3 #

You meet more people. You become friends with some amazing people. People that are smart, likeable and helping. They are just like you, but better. And so you like them and you learn from them. You learn rationality and what it is like to transcend beyond the norm, you find serendipity and a sense of belonging, maybe be a bit too much.

And then a thought comes to your mind: "Not every relationship, every friendship works out." You often get into disagreements with the person you were very fond of. You start to think if you were made for something else. You stay in that relationship because of sunk-cost fallacy. But yet, you start spending less and less time with them.

It's a whole mess. You need that. There's chaos and yet there's order. There's entropy. It's absurd. You are absurd. We are absurd. The world is absurd. And discovering oneself is absurd.

You start getting addicted to a lot of things. You start getting addicted to thinking, to again fuelling your curiosity, to seeking out things that really matter, to discovering meaning. You start spending hundreds of hours trying to develop a new skill, you start delving more into the abstract feelings, the emotions, the language and the stuff that you had never even thought about. That's the thing about discovering yourself.

You start receiving reproaches from your loved ones. Because they care. They care too much. Because they are your family, your friends, your people. They fear. They fear that you're not going to be okay, that you should focus on other things. They fear because it's new and absurd. But you disregard everything, the system, the society, the negativity. Out of spite, you create, learn, grow and escape. And eventually things get much better. That's the thing about discovering oneself.

Why? Why? It's a different, very different feeling. It's amazing. It's fucking amazing. I only wish I had discovered myself sooner. But I am really grateful that I did. You should try it sometime.