What’s the first impression you want to give people?
We often learn to name ourselves, affixing titles, claiming recognition, and embracing identities that grow along the journey. Yet, deep in a space within my heart, I long for a form of existence that does not ask to be known. A presence that invites no interpretation, craves no attention and simply present, like nature, which never questions itself.
I want to be seen as one sees a tree. Not as a symbol, not as a statement, but as a being that desires only to grow. A tree does not think of its image in the eyes of the beholder.. it does not weigh every branch as a trophy, nor lift every leaf as a sign of success. It simply lives its own life (according to natural laws) absorbing light, weathering the wind, and living in a calm that requires no witnesses.
So it is with me.
I do not desire life’s achievements to loom over me like a crown that must be paraded. Every successful moment is nothing more than the footprint of a season, arriving, passing, and returning to become the soil where the next step sprouts. I do not want to wear an identity that clings so tightly it becomes a trap to my own self. For an identity carved by the gaze of others often demands we remain static, while life itself is constantly changing. Isn’t that so? (sighs)
In this reflection, I have learned that the subtlest freedom lies in the ability not to grasp at anything about oneself.
A few years ago, I repeatedly read a book titled: The Power of Now. It truly taught me that presence is not built through what we claim, but through what we release. In the silence of the present moment, all names and forms we once held lose their voice. What remains is only a clear consciousness, unbound and binding nothing.
Thus, I choose to live as a vessel that breathes, not as a stone attributed a fixed form. I choose to be an existence that does not pressure the world to understand, but simply exists with the world in the same rhythm.
If people wish to look, let them look without prejudice; if they wish to judge, let it come from a space free of old stories about who I am supposed to be.
Because in a life unburdened by identity, one can move like light owned by no one, and grow like a tree that needs no name for its beauty to be realized.
The inspiration found in The Power of Now invites me to understand that the “self” we recognize is a collection of memories and roles. I am an actor on the stage of life, but in truth, I am behind the scenes, as a silent observer.
I desire to live without binding myself to any identity built along this journey, whether as a professional, a partner, or a fighter. These identities are robes, and robes must be removed when the day has ended.
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