From a recent comment by Yaakov Astor:
A wise man once told me identity is like being a jet on an aircraft carrier. You need the aircraft carrier to get you to a launching point but then need to be able to take off yourself. Too many get on the aircraft carrier and never take off (never realize they are jets with the ability to take off). They remain limited/grounded. Others never get on the aircraft carrier to begin with and are left stranded, never getting to complete their mission.
Of course, for some people their true identity and the purpose they are here is to service the aircraft carrier; they were never meant to be jets or helicopters that take off; and they’re happy to be part of the ground crew, as it were. That’s fine. If that’s what one is. And one realizes it.
The quesiton is: what if that is not what one is? Or what if one doesn’t know what one is? Or what if life has tossed one about, broken one’s moorings and turned one into a refugee from their identity?
I don’t think there are easy answers. You’ve got to be real, but you may have to concede and conform a bit in order to realize a perhaps higher form of self.
The challenge is doubly hard as the people that we would like to emulate may also be in the same “plane” as us.
Very insightful and thought provoking piece of writing …..it gets kind of stormy shades of grey though when u have a highly skilled army pilot stuck maintaining the interior and exterior foliage and holiday displays of the airport terminal or in charge of Airport housekeeping due to technical brain difficulties … I guess thats when the whole destiny versus actual effort argument gets a chance to argue itself out …… In response to your question “Or what if life has tossed one about, broken one’s moorings and turned one into a refugee from their identity?”.. I guess if one looks hard enough through the cracked and or snapped emotional glass and past the choppy /stormy /shortcircuiting (brain) waves there usually is a lighthouse or two shining /blinding /beaming enlightening/beckoning/glaring /judging /confusing the way for a brighter tomorrow ….I guess the trick is to know which lighthouse to embrace, which lighthouse to ignore and which lighthouse to just take pictures of for one’s scenic life scrapbook calendar ……