I’m happy just because I found out I am really no one.

—Bright Eyes, At The Bottom Of Everything

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qikRcAiCtKM

To be someone is too great a burden.

If I’m someone, I have to keep up; I have to do it right; I have to play the game.

If I’m someone, I have to tell God he is three in one because all good Christian someones do.

If I’m someone, I have to plunge upwards alone in the great climbing wall of life, stepping on every living human foothold below me until I can stand on the head of every other climber who wants my job.

If I’m someone, I have to fight for my space, wherever I live, and exclude those around me from my moment-to-moment existence.

If I’m someone, I can’t trust others to drive my car, use my computer, or touch my things. Oh, and I certainly don’t have gas to drive half a mile and give someone her forgotten phone charger.

Ego is fear. Fear of society’s judgment regarding lifestyle choices; fear of losing salvation for not telling God the right things about him; fear of getting stepped on and falling off the climbing wall; fear of having my personal space violated mentally, emotionally, or physically; fear of having my expensive possessions damaged by the careless hacks who annoy me all day long; and fear of running out of gas.

To be no one is weightless.

If I’m no one, I can tell God that I accept whoever he is with open arms.

If I’m no one, I can accept his forgiveness without the weight of trying to do it myself as if I were someone.

If I’m no one, I can let go of the climbing wall and float.

If I’m no one, I can experience nothing but joy when someone else comes crashing into my personal space.

If I’m no one, my car, my computer, my gas, are all nothing to me, and they’re more useful when they’re helping a someone than when they’re rotting in front of no one.

Pretending to be someone makes us fearful–for good reason. There is only one Someone, and he made us all no ones. The weightlessness of no-one-ness is incomparable.

Synthesized from face-to-face conversation with Matthew A. and Facebook comments from Matthew A. and Ryan S.

Oh, it was a wonderful splash.