What is Self Actualization?

I dunno.  I heard it somewhere once.  Looking around the internet I see that it is a psychological term.  It kinda sorta means achieving one's full potential.  By golly.  I didn't know what it was, but it was what came to mind when I decided to have this blog.  Low and behold, it fits.  The muse must be upon me.

I guess that the way to start this thing is to develop a mission statement.  Forgive me.  I've had far too much business training.  I can't write anything without slipping into my business personality or my jovial personality or my brooding personality.  I got lots of 'em...personalities I mean.  I was even going to call this blog 'searching for myself', but that combo of words was used far too much around the internet nowadays.  But I'm doing that here too.  I mean I'm searching for myself...here with myself...whoever that might be.

OK...mission statement...right.  It's simple really.  I'm searching for the essential me.  The essential me would have to be 'my full potential', right...because I can't be anything more after I've reached the essential me.  Can't change who I am, I would venture to say.  But there's psychological talk about reinventing oneself.  It's a buzz word...reinventing oneself.  Right now I don't believe in it.  That's only right because how can I reinvent something when I don't even know what it is.   So I gotta find myself.  Gotta git me some of that self-actualization.

You may ask...you may...if you're not bored to tears with this already...you may ask "Why am I not myself?"  That's easy too.   As a 59 year old man, I was born in an era when homosexuality was denigrated to the point of being illegal.   See.  It's not my fault.  Society would not allow me to be myself...ever.   Maybe I never invented a 'me' to reinvent.  Or maybe my 'me' lies hidden and forgotten in some musty dusty recess of my mind.   Anyway, that's what started it.  It started with my having to hide myself.  There was really no choice.  I was illegal for god's sake!  So I hid myself behind a myriad of personalities that I copied from people around me.  I've gone through life mimicing either this model or that, depending upon whom I was interacting with.   Do that for 59 years and you'll start to wonder who you are too.

I think I'll start by writing about things that sorta grab me.  I'm gonna just be fishin' here.  The theory being that things that grab my attention and cause me to think have to be in some way defining of my true identity.  So don't expect any structure here, man.  I'm confused and weird (have been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome).  I'm just going to flail around here for a while and see what I come up with.  Oh...and if you have any pointers just lay them on me.