I told you yesterday about yelling at someone for the first time in my adult life.  Then a friend said “You were a teacher.  You never yelled at a kid?”  And a 40-year-old memory came.  So … yesterday I yelled at someone for the second time in my adult life.

This weekend I’m in an online retreat with the Core group of the Evolutionary Collective.  I told my yelling story to the group – about 60 folks.

The teacher asked me to let go of all the identity stuff …

I’m a good person

Maybe now I’m a less good person because I yelled at someone yesterday

I’m a bad person

My first thought was “If I drop all these identities, will there be anything left?”  The second was “Will I just be part of some bland spiritual soup, my molecules no different than the ones next to me?”

I didn’t voice these concerns in the meeting.  I just reflected on what the teacher said.

Something about paper, about lists, about figuring things out.  Words came back …

Let the piece of paper float away, Bruce

Today “identity” feels solid:

I am A

I am not B

I don’t want to be solid.

There’s a particularity that flows out of me, unique in the world.  I can’t stop that flow – nor would I want to.  Today it seems that settling on an identity gums up the flow.  A dam.  Stagnant water.

Hmm.  What a waste of energy – deciding on, constructing and defending an identity

…

On to the new