Find Yourself or Create Yourself?

I love this quote from Bob Dylan. “Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”

And there’s no question the former Robert Zimmerman of Hibbing, Minnesota did a magnificent job of creating the artist, Bob Dylan.

But there were some pieces to the “Dylan myth” that he found.

He found music on the radio when he was quite young. He discovered the guitar. He unearthed the poets from Rimbaud to Kerouac. He found Woody Guthrie, Suze Rotolo and Joan Baez.

And all the while he was finding things, he was also creating.

Which strikes me that “finding yourself” and “creating yourself” are not binary.

It’s not either/or.

I suggest it’s both. Indeed, I see it as a process.

First you find some things you are drawn to. Pay attention, now. What do you like? What do you like to do?

You then start to store up these ideas and actions and they become encoded in your brain. And once you have these pieces, you start to put them together in the puzzle that becomes…you.

The process?

From hunting and gathering to making.

From searching to creating.

And from creating to being.

As Dylan sings: “May you build a ladder to the stars and climb on every rung.”

Who are you?

It begins with what have you been finding.

Image: Bob Dylan “Self-Portrait”