If I could be anyone I wanted, what kind of person would I choose to be, an entrepreneur, an artist, a dancer or an engine driver perhaps? What if it came true and I had the flair for invention and making money? What if I could paint beautiful pictures, plié or drive the 8:12 from Morpeth station? Would I still be me? Had these skills always been in me or would I have to become someone different to make them happen?
But if I could be someone different, could actually make the choice to become someone that is not me, would I be brave enough to make that choice? Would I be prepared to leave myself behind, discard my past and make the change? Would I be prepared to forsake myself in the pursuit of a higher perfection?
I doubt it. Not because I don’t have dreams and aspirations. Not because I don’t wish that I had some talents that are beyond me. No, I doubt it because it is a paradox.
I am who I am and if I choose to be someone else then I stop being who I am and so that desire to change cannot have existed and, therefore, I cannot exist. Or, if I am someone else then I cease to be a wish within me and so again I cannot exist.
In other words I can only wish to be someone else as long as I am me. The very act of becoming destroys the dream that created. Perhaps a sonic screwdriver would help at this point.
Anyway I am not any of the things that I might have wished to be but in the end I turned out to be who I am and that’s really who I’d like to be.
Thoughts from a Guerrilla Worker 