Nothing to add so here

I'll link my sister's blog posting about our Dad. The details vary a bit, but in the end all I can do is echo those sentiments.

Happy birthday, Dad.

http://mkosboth.blogspot.com/

A note of reassurance, really

So my mom is now on Facebook. Kinda odd but kinda cool too. Today she
mentioned in passing, as moms are want to do with grenades of this type,
that I seem to do lots of "who are you" types of quizzes. Like "what
Looney Tunes character are you" or Princess Bride and so on. Her
brutal (or so it seemed at that moment) insight was "oh he still
doesn't know who he is."

Ooof was my initial thought. Good god it's a silly quiz or dozen.
There's no deeper metaphysical resonance than having a bit of a
lark... Is there? Well there'd have be, wouldn't there? I mean if I
truly hold to the idea that we are speaking loudly as to who and what
we are and think then the quizzes we take (perhaps not the answer
necessarilly but that we take them and which ones) must say something
about us.

So what do these say about me? And is there something to what she said?

The answer to the former is found in the answer to the latter. Which
is yes, only not in the way I first responded. Don't I know who I am
yet at forty two years of age? Short answer: sort of but not quite.
See the most fundamental approach I take to how I engage the Universe
is an Existential bent. Ooo wouldn't Mr. Knapp be happy? That is to
say, how to do I bring purpose to my passing through this life? It
also brings with it the idea that who I am at this moment is built
upon who I have been which in turn influences who I am becoming. Am I
able to adequately express my authentic self in a reasonably socially
acceptable manner to foster inner contentment and stay out of jail?

Yes to the second. Working on the first. Which is why the answer to
conundrum posed by my mom's insight is no, I don't know who I am. I
know who I have been. I know who I want to be. I am trying to be
myself in a world that does it's best to crush that out of each of us
every day. (paraphrased from some one smarter than me but can't recall
who.)

So I take these quizzes. The answers inform me in some ways of who I
am. They also tell me I can figure out how to game the quizzes and get
the response I want. Which also tells me something. Like I watched too
many movies.

I've taken statistically validated personality profiles and loads of
junk like that in grad school. They serve the same purpose: bits of
light in the night sky that help me sort out where I'm headed. One bit
of light isn't too helpful on it's own. But fill a sky with them and
they might help you from getting too lost on the journey to yourself.

So, Mom, it's ok for me not to know who I am. I know where I've been
and have a rough idea where I'm heading. And I've learned to read the
skies.


Only one who has traveled the road knows where the holes are deep. -
Lau Tzu