becoming a self in history, becoming a self in my street

Beate Blockhuys

Finding out who I am and what I live for hasn’t happened in a flash. It has grown slowly out of many experiences where I failed. When I was young I wanted to be a landscape gardener, but I was hurt by an unhappy love affair which left me with the conviction that I was unlovable. My confidence was shattered by rejection. I was so shaken by this experience that I got ill. My energy grew less and less, and I had to give up my training in landscape gardening. Later I tried to give courses in goetheanistic nature- observation, but over the years, self doubt led to the next failure. My endeavours to do social work also met with no success. Until now, all the various treatments I have had have not been able to restore my energy.

To make something out of my life, I have begun to write a book about the question: what can I do with my pain? I want to learn from it rather than teach others not to hurt me. I want to find out what pain is for in my life and in the world. I think about the world and read about society everywhere. I have found my care for the world has become a kind of prayer. My illness has given me the chance to make caring and finding meaning the primary activity of my life. I am always learning and always growing and my questions and my concerns mean that I find life very rich. I have found who I am and what I want to do. It is never complete and it changes constantly, but I can always be quiet and still and care about the world. That is who I am and that has emerged very slowly through one failure after another.