The butterfly

Zhuangzi dreamed he was a butterfly. Not a man thinking about a butterfly. A butterfly, fluttering, pleased with itself, going wherever it liked, entirely unaware of being anybody else.

Then he woke up. And there he was, solid, lying in a bed, breathing.

He wrote: I don't know whether I was then a man dreaming of being a butterfly, or whether I'm now a butterfly dreaming of being a man.

Read that at twenty and it sounds like cleverness. Read it in your forties, on a Wednesday, in an office, wearing a name badge, and it gets uncomfortable in a useful way.

How many of the things you call your personality were chosen, and how many were assigned by a school, a family, a first job, a period of your life you've since outgrown? The role can be good at its work. That's the trap. A role that performs well gets renewed indefinitely.

You don't have to answer the butterfly question tonight. But you're allowed to ask it. That's different from being ungrateful.

MOJOWAY holds a client file, ten minutes of real conversation, and the patience to look again next month. Growing up is partly the slow work of finding out which parts of you were ever yours to choose.