I read a wonderful quote by one of my favorite essayists Laurel Thatcher Ulrich today. She was discussing what it means to truly be and discover oneself.
"True identity is found only in being anonymous, in not being connected to another person, place, or thing. Only by not being identified by connections can we discover who we really are. Only when I am not my home, my husband, my crowd, my children, my car, my job, my church job, or even my past am I really myself.
"Anne Morrow Lindbergh says that true identity 'is found in creative activity springing from within. It is found, paradoxically, when one loses oneself...Women can best refind herself by losing herself in some kind of creative activity of her own,...Only a refound person can refind a personal relationship.' Or, I might add, find reason and enthusiasm for being all that she can be in any other realm." (Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, p. 18, All God's Critters Got a Place in the Choir).
It's a good reminder to me to not let myself get too busy to do the creative activities I love so much. It's so easy to get caught up in the practical cares of life like cleaning, shopping, even church callings that we sometimes have to schedule time to be by ourselves like Ulrich learned to do. She is an example to me. At one point in the same book, she talks about attaining the highest level of thought and concentration, "writing at level four," she calls it. At this level, she makes connections, she truly creates, but most of her life is spent at level one, the making lists, writing notes level of creativity.
Writing at level four seems to be the ultimate place for self-reflection, for creating yourself as you want to be. We should all visit more often, I think.
