One of my favorite moments in the Gloria Steinem biopic of a few years ago was when she was on a school bus, surrounded by versions of herself at different ages. I was put in mind of it as I considered all the widely variant versions of myself I have been in my life.
Mind you, I love and cherish all the Pauls, but they are so amazingly different from each other. On the bus with me would be, at least:
- The ego-centric, cocksure Paul of youth, who envisioned a life as a television host and wrote a 140-page novel (manuscript long gone). He is a radio nerd at an all-boys high school, who dated two girls in four years. Always top of his class for 12 years. He wears plaid shirts and polyester paints; never blue jeans. There is no dress code at high school; he still wears a coat and tie regularly. For the last week of his sophomore year, he wears a rapper style necklace with a dollar sign on it for no apparent reason.
- College Paul, massively insecure as he realizes that he is now at the bottom of his class. At MIT’s co-ed co-op Student House, he either falls in love with or develops a crush on all the women who live with him. He owns no blue jeans, so wears dress slacks on beach trips. He falls in with the college FM station crowd, and dreams of a career in radio. He falls in with The Tech crowd and dreams of print. He grows a beard in 1972, and except for a month in 1992, is never without it again.
- Late 70s Paul. His The Tech friends have literally thrown away his entire wardrobe, so he now dresses better, in clothes from Saks and Lord and Taylor. For the first time, he experience real love. It ends up hurting him. He moves from Boston to San Francisco to Portland to San Francisco.
- 80s Paul: husband and father and buys his first pair of blue jeans in decades. Lots of joy. Very little contemplation and gratitude.
- 90s, 00s and 10s Paul: The same but older.
- 2020 Paul: a mystical experience changes his life to one of poetry, mindfulness and gratitude.
Between them, the pre-2020 Pauls have probably spent 30 seconds “in the moment.” They have fallen for the mind-body fallacy and live 100% in their mind. No exercise. Careless eating. Their weight ranges from 175 at 14 to just under 300 at 48. There are probably a few other Pauls I have forgotten. Of course, there is present Paul, a daily meditator who is overweight but not technically obese, and also has a daily gratitude practice.
I am not the first person to note (of themselves) that there are several of these past Pauls that I would not voluntarily spend time with. I am not ashamed of any of them; I had to pass through them to become the me I am presently pretty satisfied with.
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