After all of my contemplations I was beginning to see that there was nothing innately special in my objects or my body. Just varying, shifting arrangements of 4 elements. I knew I was not my arrangements, and yet, I couldn’t shake the belief that those arrangements, and my ability to bring them about, must prove something about ME. Alana the great arranger!  I knew I had a huge wrong view remaining – that because I am a partial cause for an outcome, that outcome must prove my identity. What follows is a synopsis of some of the discrete contemplations I used to attack this view.

Beaver dam:

I was out hiking and came across a beaver damn. The dams are quite common out here in Connecticut and after seeing the zillionth one, I was hardly impressed. But…shouldn’t I be? I mean here was Beaver the Great Arranger of Dams: the little animal worked hard to cause its dam, this one indeed did look a little bigger and more symmetrical than the rest I had run into. But, in my mind a dam is just what beavers do, there is nothing special – no identity that I assign a beaver – because of its dam.

So, why do I look at things I build/cause, the particular arrangements of my wardrobe, my home, my body, and feel they make me special? Isn’t all this shit just stuff humans do? That’s when it hit me – I am the one assigning value – identity bestowing meaning — to some results/arrangements while ignoring others. A beaver dam is just what beavers do, but my elaborate wardrobe makes me a fashionista. My greatness only exists (in my own mind) because I am self-selecting the qualities with which to build my identity.

What’s more is I have a tendency to get caught-up in details, to use small differences to further sell myself the identity lie. So humans have all figured out how to use bags/baskets/trays to carry stuff, but my LV bag versus your Gap bag is what makes me so special. But the thing is, some beavers have access to better wood, better location, they have more strength or less human encroachment and can build a better dam. So? That is normal. As is the fact that that very same beaver can lose their dam, a forest fire or a building project can make wood scarce, etc. That some humans, some times, can have LV bags and others can’t, that is normal too. Normal and subject to change. So how am I using it to prove something special, something meaningful, something ME, about me?

My friend the baker:

A friend of mine went to culinary school and I always think of him as ‘the baker’. Even when he hasn’t cooked for me in a while, even after he got a job doing something totally unrelated, he remained “a baker” in my mind. But how does an action, done at distinct points in time bestow an identity?

I suppose I could justify a fixed ‘baker identity’ if a  cake he made, even once, stayed steady-state forever… but, without fail, each and every baked item gets consumed, or goes stale, or ends up in the compost bin. I started thinking hard about why that is, why no cake ever just keeps its perfect, post oven, glory and I realized it is in the nature of the 4 elements itself.

Left uninterrupted things that are hot, like cakes out of the oven, tend to cool. Wet/moist things tend to dry. Solid things tend to disintegrate. Movement comes to a halt. In time, all arrangements tend to go back to the states indigenous to their elements. So how can the identity of the arranger stay the same when the arrangements themselves keep shifting, decaying, following the rules of rupa rather than the rules of the arranger. What baker wouldn’t bake the ever-perfect cake if they could?

A trip to the eye doctor:

I was on my way to the eye doctor the other day and got to thinking about the suffering in my day so far. I realized that since I had awoken, I had been at low level stress trying to get to the appt on time. I felt rushed, worried. I realized the suffering wasn’t just my desire to make the appointment, it was arising because of my belief that being on time to the appointment proves what kind of person I am: If I am on time, it proves I am a considerate person, someone good, someone who cares about the life and time of others. I want desperately to be that kind of a person and I can’t face an identity as an inconsiderate bad person, as a late patient, that would disprove who I believe I AM.

The problem is, I use Rupa world shit, stuff I seriously don’t ultimately control, to prove this great considerate identity. I am bound to ultimately fail sooner or later. Trains are late all the time, alarms don’t go off, emergencies happen. In truth I am regularly late, even when I take preparations and precautions, to be on time. When I am late I suffer a terrible pain, a hit to my identity.

But even when I manage to be on time I suffer too. I suffer stress, like I did getting to the appointment. I suffer the preparation time and worry. But when I am on time, I excuse it, gloss over the stress because I think it is worth it, I get to be the me I want to be!

But this is like winning small battles, at high cost, in a war I can never ever win.

Why can’t I win? Because I am trying to derive identity based-off of things that I can only arrange when all the stars align, partially to my liking but always with consequences I don’t like, some of the time, temporarily.

Another day, another cake:

All of this brought me back to the original problem:  Even though I know I am not my arrangements, I couldn’t shake the belief that those arrangements, and my ability to bring them about, proves  something about me. I.e. since I can cause a cake to be baked that cake defines Alana the Baker (baker pronounced ‘Alana the organizer and controller of all Rupa in the universe’).

But after considering beaver dams, my friend the real-life baker and a trip to the eye doc, I realized I can arrange a cake, if:

1. The circumstances and Rupa allow it. I.e. Eric didn’t use the last egg, the weevils didn’t eat the flour, the landlord fixed the oven, etc. In reality this isn’t some fine print asterisk of “conditions may apply”. In everyday life there are countless ways and circumstances that don’t allow for cake baking.

2. Some of the time, ie even if the circumstances allow me to bake a cake it still may go flat or turn out crappy

3. Partially, there are always 2 sides so even if I get a cake that I want, I get a huge stack of dishes I hate

4. Temporarily ie I can bake once, but not necessarily a second time

5. Plus once that cake comes about it is not subject to my rules but the rules of Rupa, so rot, decay, consumed, etc.

When I put it that way…it doesn’t exactly have the same ‘Alana, high and mighty, ruler of the universe ring to it.’ So much for Alana the Great Arranger.