"To say 'I love you' one must know first how to say the 'I'."

~ Ayn Rand, 20th century philosopher from The Fountainhead

Everything we do in life is built upon one foundation. Every thought, every action, every experience, every story comes down to one seed. That seed is "I." Everything in existence, that we are involved in, springs from or is directly related to, "I."

This "I" comes before every thought we have about ourselves. Every opinion we profess. Every name we give. It is at the forefront of whenever we see a form and assess its nature and purpose. In every relationship of every kind, whether to ourselves, an object, or another "I", is founded on our thought of "I." We can say nothing of ourselves without this "I."

This is all a no-brainer, and painfully obvious, and not terribly interesting because it is so ordinary and banal. I am an "I." Yeah? So what? No big deal.

The big deal comes when we realize that we have no idea what this "I" is. All of our self-identifications come after this "I." "I am cute." "I am a tech support rep." "I am a good driver." "I am am loyal friend." All of those statements, the ones after the "I", don't actually say what that "I" is, they tell a story about that "I." I can go to great lengths describing Sarnath in India to you, but you will never know it until you have been. And, of course you will then only have a new story in relation to your "I." This "I" is our basis, but we go through life telling stories about it, rather than finding out what it actually is.

Since it is so much the basis of our lives, I think that this quest is the most basic (and important) one available. Without knowing this "I", the root of it, the source of it, I will never be able to do more than tell a story about my "I", to myself or anyone else.

We live our live trying very hard to make the story that comes after "I", acceptable, useful, successful and beautiful, without really knowing what this spring board is.

What is this "I?"

That question (in hundreds of forms) forms the core of almost all spiritual paths and is the heart seed of Atma-Vichara (self-inquiry) as given by Ramana Maharshi. The answer to that question is the final goal, the only goal that concerns reality. Without it, we live our lives as stories only, never knowing what "I" am.

Enlightenment and epiphanies can show up in some pretty strange ways. The Buddha found it under a Boddhi tree, Nelson Mandela in prison and spiritual guru Ram Dass through psychedelic drugs. Little did I know, mine would arrive in the form of a hard-shelled reptile simply trying to cross the road -- a turtle.

Shhhh, I'm going to tell you a secret. One of my wife's nicknames for me is turtle. I'm not going to tell you why, but it is with great joy that I read this piece over at HelpOthers.org - A Turtle Who Taught Me Kindness. Enjoy!

When I was about twelve, my Mother had a boyfriend.  He was a skinny little guy with the worst luck with animals.  He had been attacked by Pit Bulls and Dobermans, and German Shepards (please note all the plurals, they are not exaggerated.)  He had two metal ribs because a horse he was feeding a carrot decided instead to bite two of his God given ribs right out of his chest through his flannel shirt.  He had been in several motorcycle accidents, and was once pinned under a truck, bent in half such that he was looking up from between his boots as a priest gave him last rites.  The man had bad luck.  He was also an amateur taxidermist, and I once watched him preserve a lobster.  He managed to inject his own left little finger with the solution which was supposed to turn the lobster's tail muscles solid.  He smiled through everything in life with a hearty, "Oh well."  And, on the occasion of the accidental attempt at preserving his own hand for posterity, his reaction was just to chuckle, flex his hand, and say, "Well, it will either circulate itself out, or I'll loose the finger, and maybe the next one.  Hmm."

It was this boyfriend, who opened my eyes to basically the whole world.

You see, I was a terribly shy boy.  I spent my days in near complete mental isolation.  I knew there were other people in the world, and I knew that they had some sort of interactions with each other, and I vaguely knew it was something that I wanted.  All of that occurred outside of the world of my experience.  One day, Roger (that was his name) was sitting at the table with me while Mom made dinner.  He said, "Travis, I notice that whenever you walk, you always look down at the ground.  Maybe you should try looking up sometime, see what's there."

It was my habit, at the time, to walk myself the eight blocks to school everyday.  The morning after Roger made his suggestion I walked the same exact walk to school, but this time I looked up.  My God!  The world!  It was so fucking huge!  The vastness of it, the beauty, the sky that would not stop.  I was a twelve year old boy seeing the world for the first time.  I was born again into a universe so much larger than the one I had known.  It was joyous.

Then I got to school, with all those mysterious others, and I looked back down.  I sat with my head down through homeroom, and half way through the first period of school.  We were working on  some arithmetic, which I have always had a talent for.  Because of that talent I was nearly done with the assigned problems about a third of the way through the period.  I was looking straight down at a blank spot between two problems when it hit me.  "What if I looked up?"  I did.  The room exploded in all directions.  I thought, "There are so many kids here!"  I smiled and looked around the room at the other children diligently working at their papers.  My eyes drifted slowly, nonchalantly,  And then, I saw her.  I don't know her name.  I never will.  But, she looked up at me, saw me smiling and smiled back one of the most lovely smiles I have ever seen.  My head snapped back down to my paper work so fast that my neck hurt for the whole next week.

The next day at school another girl I knew by mumble, Shereif, walked up at me smiling and said, "Travis, what happened?  You never smile, and you never look up."  I turned bright red and shrugged.  She said, "Well, whatever, I like it."

That experience gave birth to my life long love of exploring possibilities of perspective, of viewing the world in other ways.  It also sparked in me a love affair with relating to people, the whys and wherefores of it all, the forms it takes.

I am eternally grateful to Roger, for that.  He didn't last long as my Mom's boyfriend, and I never did see him after that.  I am sure he was killed by a circus elephant, or something.  Wherever he is, I hope he has some idea of what a difference he made in a small boys life.  I still wistfully look down sometimes as I walk, especially when a girl smiles at me, but now it's with a twinkle in my eye.

Walking to my local pub for dinner, down my street the other evening.  Looking at the total beauty of things as they are; the street, the curb, the buildings, the pan-handlers, the tourists, the sky, the light.  It occurred to me that none of this, nothing at all, nothing that has happened, was happening, or ever would happen has any effect on what I truly am, whatsoever.

This is not a negative statement.  The pure witness that gives rise to the feeling, the sureness, that "I am" never moves, is never affected, is never harmed, never was born and never dies.  In that space of complete non-occurrence, all of the universe occurs, and that is what I am.

The diner was grand, to boot!