A Thousand Selves

One cold midwinter day, I went through my old notebooks—my collections of creative ideas, sketches, and scribbles. As I turned the pages, I was struck by the sheer volume of thoughts, half-formed concepts, and expressions. These notebooks, just a fraction of what I’ve created throughout my life, held the remnants of ideas I once nurtured and then set aside.

My challenge has never been a lack of ideas but rather an abundance of them, more than I could ever bring to life. So, I let them rest, waiting for a future moment when they might whisper something new to me.

As I sat there, a question arose: Who was this person who did all this work?

In Zen, we sometimes speak of the self as a flowing river—ever-changing, never abiding. The person who filled these pages is not the one who reads them now. And yet, there is continuity, a thread of creative energy weaving through time. To awaken to this impermanence here and now is to taste freedom.

Eventually, I closed the notebooks, placing them back on the shelf. Another day, another self, perhaps, will return to them, ready to listen.