Everything in the universe is constantly in flux. I am constantly changing every second of every day. There is never a moment that I am exactly the same as the moment before no matter how finely I slice the moments. So a consistent identity is impossible. I can let go of the idea that the present “me” is the same person as any past “me.”
All it does is lock in a story. A good story can be a fun way to spend my time, but if it ever stops being fun, I can return to the truth. And the only truth is now.
I am newly born every instant. Every razor-thin moment is its own entirely self-contained existence with no past, no future and no separation - whole, complete and perfect without its imaginary “continuation” which is nothing more than an ephemeral game of the mind - a fun game to play when I know it’s not real.
I find that when I am identified as a “me” who has to be the same “me” as I was in the past, I am limited in what I can do. I have to say yes or no because of what I said yes or no to yesterday. I have to justify my past decisions to fit the standards of today. I do all kinds of mental gymnastics to keep a consistent identity within a constantly changing universe from which I am never separate.
All of it is unnecessary.
I am completely free. I am only this. Now.
The only thing I can ever be is a localized moment of an ever-shifting universe that is perfectly in balance with itself.
Mistaking my true nature, I keep trying to stand still, to hold back the tide, to claim real estate on quicksand, to claim to always be THIS shape of smoke, THIS plume of fire.
Hopeless.
I cannot stop flowing. There is no way to do it without inventing and maintaining an elaborate lie. When it’s fun, I can do it, but when it stops being fun, I can let go and just keep flowing.
When it really stops being fun, suicidal thinking can emerge. But there’s no need to do anything to my body, only to let go of the idea of a consistent identity. Every “me” is already “dead” the moment I notice it. Gone. Changed to this now. Which is gone in place of this. And this. And now this…
Isn’t ‘the end of this self’ all suicide is trying to accomplish? Well, it has already happened. Because it is always happening.
I am always beginning again, always born into newfound peace, if only I’ll allow it.
I am always new unless I’m torturing myself with the impossible, imaginary need to stay the “me” I was before. Who WAS that person? A beautiful, love-worthy person from another place and time, doing the absolute best they can with what they’re thinking and believing, and who is not me now.
I can just let go of the fiction of a consistent identity the way I let go of the fiction of a video game character.
Fun while it’s fun, but OVER the instant it’s not.
Oh, and by the way:
No one else is ever the same person either.