Identity Crises

[Image: ‘A Little Family History,’ by B. Kliban]

From whiskey river:

Moment

A person wakes from sleep
and does not know for a time
who she is, who he is.

This happens in a lifetime
once or twice.
It has happened to you, no doubt.

Some in that moment
panic,
some sigh with pleasure.

How each kind later envies the other,
who must so love their lives.

(Jane Hirshfield [source])

…and:

We don’t have to hate ourselves for our own vulnerability. We don’t have to hate ourselves for what life has done to us. We don’t have to hate ourselves because hurt or loss or longing has gotten to us. Our desires will always be with us in some form, keeping us firmly attached to a world that will hurt us. We must come to love ourselves, love our life, in its vulnerability, in its impermanence, not in spite of all its flaws, but because of them. Because the vulnerability, the changes, the flaws make us who we are.

(Barry Magid)

…and (italicized portion):

Making art and viewing art are different at their core. The sane human being is satisfied that the best he/she can do at any given moment is the best he/she can do at any given moment. […] Such sanity is, unfortunately, rare. Making art provides uncomfortably accurate feedback about the gap that inevitably exists between what you intended to do, and what you did. In fact, if artmaking did not tell you (the maker) so enormously much about yourself, then making art that matters to you would be impossible. To all viewers but yourself, what matters is the product; the finished artwork. To you, and you alone, what matters is the process: the experience of shaping that artwork. The viewers’ concerns are not your concerns (although it’s dangerously easy to adopt their attitudes.) Their job is whatever it is: to be moved by art, to be entertained by it, to make a killing off it, whatever. Your job is to learn to work on your work.

(David Bayles [source])

Not from whiskey river:

Button

It likes both to enter and to leave,
actions it seems to feel as a kind of hide-and-seek.
It knows nothing of what the cloth believes
of its magus-like powers.

If fastening and unfastening are its nature,
it doesn’t care about its nature.

It likes the caress of two fingers
against its slightly thickened edges.
It likes the scent and heat of the proximate body.
The exhilaration of the washing is its wild pleasure.

Amoralist, sensualist, dependent of cotton thread,
its sleep is curled like a cat to a patch of sun,
calico and round.

Its understanding is the understanding
of honey and jasmine, of letting what happens come.

A button envies no neighbouring button,
no snap, knot, no polyester-braided toggle.
It rest on its red-checked shirt in serene disregard.

It is its own story, completed.

Brevity and longevity mean nothing to a button carved of horn.

Nor do old dreams of passion disturb it,
though once it wandered the ten thousand grasses
with the musk-fragrance caught in its nostrils;
though once it followed — it did, I tell you — that wind for miles.

(Jane Hirshfield [source])

…and:

A middle-aged woman has a heart attack and is taken to the hospital. While on the operating table she has a near-death experience. During that experience she sees God and asks if this is it. God says no and explains that she has another 30-40 years to live.

Upon her recovery she decides to just stay in the hospital and have a face lift, liposuction, breast augmentation, and a tummy tuck. She even has someone come in and change her hair colour. She figures that since she’s got another 30 or 40 years she might as well make the most of it.

She walks out the hospital after the last operation and is killed by an ambulance speeding up to the hospital.

She arrives in front of God again and asks, “I thought you said I had another 30-40 years?”

God replies, “Sorry, I didn’t recognize you.”

([source])

…and:

‘You do not seem very busy, Mr Smith.’

Both Psmith and Mr Rossiter were startled.

Mr Rossiter jumped as if somebody had run a gimlet into him, and even Psmith started slightly. They had not heard Mr Bickersdyke approaching. Mike, who had been stolidly entering addresses in his ledger during the latter part of the conversation, was also taken by surprise.

Psmith was the first to recover. Mr Rossiter was still too confused for speech, but Psmith took the situation in hand.

‘Apparently no,’ he said, swiftly removing his hat from the ruler. ‘In reality, yes. Mr Rossiter and I were just scheming out a line of work for me as you came up. If you had arrived a moment later, you would have found me toiling.’

‘H’m. I hope I should. We do not encourage idling in this bank.’

‘Assuredly not,’ said Psmith warmly. ‘Most assuredly not. I would not have it otherwise. I am a worker. A bee, not a drone. A _Lusitania,_ not a limpet. Perhaps I have not yet that grip on my duties which I shall soon acquire; but it is coming. It is coming. I see daylight.’

(P.G. Wodehouse, Psmith in the City [source])

Finally, HAL the shipboard computer tries to convince Dave that he’s really, really all right and Dave, stop, really no need, I know I’ve made some very poor decisions recently, stop Dave, I’m afraid…