Imagining myself out of nothingness

   I remember pretty clearly the days when I thought of myself as a punk rocker, later as a rockabilly music lover, and later still as a conceptual artist. Although envisioning myself as an artist now looks a bit less restrictive as a way to posit who I am than the other roles I mentioned, it still provided a clear, and I believe now overly simplified sense of definitive 'being' in the world, a way to be Adam (this Adam, and not the other people named Adam I knew), without being anyone in particular.
   As I grew older (and I like to think became at least a little bit more mature), the titles I previously held formerly to define me, and ways to locate that me in the world became a bit less clear. During the past couple of years in particular, my own sense of self has become downright murky. I can't really put a word or image anymore to the idea of who I am, and although I see it as a sign of growth, it can be uncomfortable, as I feel like my body doesn't have the physical integrity, the wholeness, to exist in the world without a way to be thought of definitively. 
   I have been spending much of my free time over the past year or so listening to music from my childhood and early teen years, and this music has helped me to uncover thoughts and ideas from that time that has served as a kind of time memory time machine that helps me to remember parts of my past, and to re-imagine them, though with me as an adult, rather than the child and young man that I was. It's as if I can revisit that time in the somewhat stronger condition that I now see myself in, and that seems to function as a new kind of way for me to think about myself. The music reminds me of the many years that I've lived, and the time gaps formed by the time when the music was new and how it functions for me now creates a kind of feeling of being in between lives. Interestingly, this feeling of being without an anchor seems to create a continuity where there previously seemed to be only nothingness.
   During this past year, I have also spent a great deal of time thinking quietly, especially during my morning walks and as I lay down to sleep, and this has also helped me to think more clearly, allowing my mind to float and make connections that I hadn't previously envisioned.
   I remember a song from my younger years by Billy Preston called "Nothing from Nothing", where the lyrics state that "nothing from nothing leaves nothing". I now believe quite firmly that something very powerful and alive can in fact come from what seems like nothing, and I hope that I never forget that.

Your author, beginning his search for identity