On the “lose to find” paradox
People often speak of losing themselves to find themselves. Some sound as though they know what they're talking about; others are mimicking. Context plays a significant role that range from seasons of great personal growth to singular events. In each, the paradox expresses a mystery in which intuition won out over linear thinking.
The paradox explains the unexplainable.
Conversations with friends on "losing to find" paradox are rarely cohesive. Sometimes it was a self-image they let go of, a reputation that no longer worked for them. They felt vulnerable but acted courageously. Images of stripping back a façade they had worn revealed a form of themselves that was more recognizable, more workable, more powerful. At times, it even sounds appropriate to say that they let go of a false self so that they could find their true selves.
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As delicious as the snappiness and balance of "letting go of the false to find the true" is, I don't like donning that description. Its itchy, uncomfortable. It doesn't sit right because I sense a deep anger arising from the logical conclusion that I was lying to myself. Self-lies may not be completely inaccurate, but that doesn't recognize my sincerity and earnestness in the process. It appears helpful but is phenomenologically diabolical. Plus, my friends agree the first self was necessary to the latter. The "false" stage was essential. How can I consciously call an essential self a false self?
At other times, my friends describe losing to find as getting lost in the moment. Think Eminem's "Lose Yourself," where a young father desperately wants to provide for his family in a way that coincides with his calling:
You better lose yourself in the music, the moment
You own it, you better never let it go
Losing yourself here means embodying everything you've ever wanted because fate hangs in the balance. That's a desperate place we've probably all felt, and I've found myself weeping when I listen to this song. I'm a father of five with a very young daughter. But even thought I resonate with the desperation, I'm not in a rap battle, so there's the question of "Is this really my dilemma?"
I need a more robust understanding of the losing to find paradox.
“It's all there . . . awaiting the critical moment when life bursts forth from the seed into a shoot and then into a plant.”
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Enter the seed-plant metaphor. As rudimentary as a seed can be, the DNA of the plant that it will become is all there inside that tiny box of growing. It's all there. Every last code of thymine, cytosine, adenine, and guanine is there awaiting the critical moment when life bursts forth from the seed into a shoot and then into a plant. Nothing is wasted. Everything is meaningful. The seed stage is essential.
Furthermore, the seed-to-plant metaphor makes room for resiliency and self-compassion. There's a tenderness present that I withhold when deciding that early versions were "false" versions. "False" denotes needless, gratuitous, pointless. Waste not, want not. I refuse to see any part of my life as unnecessary. All is warranted. All is educational. All is loveable. Even the excessive alcohol I consumed last Saturday night allows me to say to myself today, "Learn from that." I want to make meaning of every part of my life, to see every moment as a foundation or stepping stone for the next.
“It’s a creation space . . . where I find myself listening to the silent manifestation of the incarnate logos . . .”
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A poet friend of mine named Pádraig turned me toward the poem "Lost" by David Wagoner. You can hear his thoughts on the poem here. Books could be written about "Lost"'s wisdom, but I'll only steal a glance at the line telling me to "treat [Lost-ness] as a powerful stranger." The creator’s space. A genesis. An evolving force sustained by the Universe. It's where I find myself listening to the silent manifestation of the incarnate logos emerging within the deafness of my own spirituality and bring hope that I, too, can yet live.
"Losing to find" expresses the deep mystery of the seed that must be buried in order to rise as a plant, leaves stretching to the eastern sun.
