ON BEING DEFINED

Recently I was talking with my sister and she noted that I have always sought to be with a woman, though she framed it as “companionship.” This caused me to reflect upon my nature and upon human nature in general. I always tended to think that I am “self-defined,” i.e. not needing others to be able to see myself and how I am. I even prided myself on my independence and sometimes isolated existence. I could go into the woods and stay there by myself for days or be at my little house off Zayante Rd. in the Santa Cruz Mountains and write my dissertation and my book for weeks at a time in solitude. In retrospect I now see just how painfully lonely I was and that my sister is quite right. Such a realization causes me to redefine myself as one who has been defined not by myself. It would seem that most people are not defined at all—to themselves or anyone else. Most people, it seems, define themselves by their roles in life, their careers, their family, their nationality, ethnicity, or nation. Or they may define themselves by their religious beliefs or otherwise spiritual beliefs, or their philosophical bent and state of mind. I see that these are all valid and credible self-definitions, if you will. I cared for my daughter for twenty years and my life revolved around her and her care, yet I would not say that I was defined by her, though I would say that I was defined by my love for her. That’s a rather strange thing to say, at least for me to say. I have now been with the woman who is my wife for seventeen years and have no doubt that she has defined me. To actually find someone whom one deeply loves and who deeply loves back is probably the most profound occurrence possible to humans. One does come to share heart, soul, mind, and body with another. Such matches are, in my estimation, beyond “natural.” One finds oneself defined by the other.

To be defined in this way is neither submission nor surrender. I suppose it could be called “love” or “connection” or “oneself as another” (to use Ricoeur’s book title). It may be that in order to “be defined by another,” one is already necessarily oneself first. But I think it’s an ongoing, deepening process. I have noted that we live on many “levels” of being simultaneously. We may focus on the more superficial levels initially but the focus and experience deepens to more subtle levels as time progresses. Hot and frequent sex becomes something different—and more sublime and lasting—as we get older, or, for instance, if one’s physical condition catalyzes such changes in the process. It may be that in the process of caring for my daughter, I learned to make her needs primary to many of my own needs. Doing this on a daily basis for twenty years perhaps had the effect of literally reforming my own psyche, my own thinking and feeling process, bringing what is called soul more to the fore. In other words, there was a kind of self-redefinition that occurred. And then the woman who is now my wife came into my life and I, with her help, was able to recognize that she was to be trusted at a very deep level. Such currents run deep in spite of the storms upon the surface. We have to be able to “go deep” and become a bit amphibious. Such is the redefining of ourselves.

Now the discussion arrives at a few questions: Where do I end and she begins? What is the nature of the boundaries between us on the deeper levels? Do people become “flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone”? Do we feel each other’s pain, even physical? One is reminded of Schopenhauer’s notion of weltschmerz or “world sorrow or pain” which, according to him, could be felt in the very cells of one’s own body. Do we naturally “take on” the suffering and pain of others, even into our bodies? Obviously so, in my estimation. Obviously too, I always tend to answer my own questions. I talk about weltschmerz somewhat at length in my book, Depression’s Seven Steps to Self-Understanding: A Guide to Comprehending and Navigating Your Inner Journey, published in 2010.

I find that once I start to write these thoughts down as essays, they lead to someplace quite different that I may have initially anticipated. To me, this is the purpose behind any creative thought: to see where it goes. Life is fascinating in this respect, no matter what.