'Of Mere Being'

These days I have been re-defining my identity upon layers and layers that it contains and underlies. It's easy to identify with the roles we automatically assume in our daily lives like a sister, a friend, a daughter, an aunt, a student, a teacher, a neighbor, a Chinese American, an Asian, a female, etc...or the personalities, types or kinds that we assume we possess or belong with, seem at times meaningful and at other times meaningless. Another form of joy is knowing that we don't have to strive for anything or do anything at all to determine who we are. Perhaps those (ambitions) propels us forward while busy living, but they never keep us near the pond of joy while purely being.

All these thoughts came to me as I ponder through what is it that defines me? For me, taking a break from EVERYTHING (work, school, running, etc..) makes me redefine who I am. And, one of my favorite poems by Wallace Stevens capture the essence of our existence that is often fleeting if we don't hold it still. In the poem, the key is the seventh and eighth lines. When you have transcended the world you understand, in a way that was not previously possible, that nothing in the world “makes us happy or unhappy”; there is no “it” from which we derive happiness or its opposite. Happiness wells up from within. I consider this one of the greatest poem of Wallace Stevens, that could uplift any soul.

Painting by Johann-rudolph Koller follow by Wallace Steven's poem:

OF MERE BEING
wallace stevens

The palm at the end of the mind,
Beyond the last thought, rises
In the bronze door,

A gold-feathered bird
Sings in the palm, without human meaning,
Without human feeling, a foreign song.

You know then that it is not the reason
That makes us happy or unhappy.
The bird sings. Its feathers shine.

The palm stands on the edge of space.
the wind moves slowly in the branches.
The bird's fire-fangled feathers dangle down.