Here at PTLO we have two primary spirit animals, Rat and Pig, characters in Stephen Pastis’ terrific comic Pearls Before Swine. The cartoon above, featuring Pig and which inspires part of our conversation this week, helps explain why.
In the strip, Pig explains to his friend Goat that he’s been out of touch because he’s been trying to find himself. Goat congratulates him, replying that trying to find yourself is a “spiritual journey” at the heart of the purpose of life. Pig, of course, meant something entirely different.
This raises some questions that we’ll spend part of our time this week talking about. First, what do you think it means to find yourself? Is Goat right, is this a spiritual journey? If it is a spiritual journey, what part does your faith play in int? What does finding yourself mean to you, specifically? And to take that question a little further, what does this task, or journey, look like for you? Where, and how, do you find yourself?
There’s a flip side to this coin, and that’s the idea of losing yourself. The chorus of Eminem’s Lose Yourself is the classic statement of the idea:
You better lose yourself in the music
The moment, you own it, you better never let it go
You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow
What is Eminem getting at here? How is this idea of “losing yourself” connected to the notion of not missing your chance to make your dream a reality? Or to live into your full potential? In this context, are finding yourself and losing yourself really the same thing?
We’ll talk about all of this, and probably more, in our discussion this week. Join us for the conversation beginning at 7pm, Tuesday, Nov. 21, at Casa Real in downtown Oxford.
And in the meantime, enjoy the video.