The version of myself that I am when in culture begins to feel like a prosthetic once I am able to gain some distance. When I get closer towards the space of timelessness, where the shifting sands of culture are non existent, I am clear. Here, there is no rollercoaster of emotions. Here, there is no personality, no distinction between ‘me’ and ‘you’, there is only the ecstasy of pure being. Here, in eternal unity, I am home.
But such a state I find cannot be maintained when living in the heart of contemporary culture, when you are always someone to someone else, when you have a job to perform, etc. The state of pure being exists in a non-hierarchally higher realm than the realm of culture. The culture-self is but an avatar that pure being experiences physical existence through. When one remains in the avatar for long enough, the culture-self begins to feel real and final. And it usually requires something tragic or heavy, some sort of unbearable pain to rouse us from this familiar automaton state, so that we may realize our true nature.
My view towards the culture-self is tinged in disdain and nihilism, and that is my own personal work to unravel in time. Maybe it is simply because I often view culture as a world of entrapments instead of a field of play. All I know in this moment, is that my disposition is best suited to the woods, in a quiet, slow place who nurtures peace and solitude. It is this kind of environment that feels like an extension of myself, or myself an extension of it.
“I love not man the less but nature more” - Lord Byron