The Search for Self with Siddhartha
This is something of a book report; I apologize in advance.
I recently reread Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse and I am pleasantly surprised how well this stands up to the test of time to a person as all over the place as me.
Siddhartha is a book about finding yourself. About finding your true self. But also it’s about realizing that you can be more than one person in a lifetime. That you can have more than one set of sensibilities and likes and dislikes and goals. That you can be dynamic. That you can literally be reborn in a flash if you allow yourself to.
I’ve always kind of hated that I can and often do change my mannerisms and how I speak and how I act depending on the company I am with. I can drop f-bombs left and right and live exclusively in flip flops and a bikini top and wind-blown-salty-air hair, or I can wear a button-up flouncy crop top shirt with tiny polka dots and beyond-Brooklyn high-waisted ripped jeans, or be all wannabe-glamoratti in legit crystal earrings, sexy 4-inch black stilettos, jet black liquid mascara, and a hot pink silk dress with a plunging neckline.
The problem for me is that I feel like me in all of them.
All of these different outfits, all of these different personas - and I don’t know which one feels the most natural. Maybe it’s none of them. Maybe it’s all of them. Maybe I still have to do some more exploring to figure out who I am and what I want to be and where I want my life to take me.
It’s kind of a fucked up existence if you think about it - most of us have no idea who we really are at any given moment in our lives. Thankfully I feel like I at least have a solid idea of who I’m not at this point. But that list is not nearly exhaustive enough to make me feel comfortable to say yes, I am x person and I do y things and this is me, all of me, so take it or leave it because it’s likely not going to change.
This book (yes, we’re back to Siddhartha) also features a main character who by all accounts I would say is sad as fuck. Sure he spends his entire life trying to find himself, and sure he has all these amazing and crazy experiences (enough to fill a whole book) that run the gamut of life, but he is ultimately all alone and in his own feelings for like 80% of the time.
He never feels like he can open up and share his true story with anyone around him, because ultimately, he only trusts himself and knows no one else who wasn’t there with him can understand the true gravity of his life experiences to date. On one hand, I love that he lives his own life and does whatever the fuck he wants and I too get the feeling of wanting to know more and understand more and to keep trying things until I figure out what I want to be in life.
But what is this crazy thing called life without someone to share the harrowing tale with? A friend, a partner, family, whatever. If Covid-times taught us anything it’s that we are primarily social creatures. We need and thrive on the interaction with others. If we don’t get it, that’s when we fantasize about shit and dream about lives outside of our own and wonder ‘what if’ on a regular basis.
PS - Ninth grader somewhere who’s about to rip this off as their book report: maybe remove the curses and shit before you do.
Xoxo,
I was obviously an academic overachiever in high school
