"I Call Myself" / "I Am" / "I Am Called," Part 3

       What appeals to me most of all is what Jack Gariss used to say to identify himself on his KPFK Pacifica program:  "I am called Jack Gariss."  Neither the assertion of an identity upon oneself nor the merging of oneself with an identity, but rather, the acceptance of a temporary designation in a much larger design.  This is how the world addresses me.  It's no more who I am than any word constitutes what it designates; a mere happenstance sign that others use to point me out.

       Neither do I call myself this.  Someone else gave me that first name, someones else, my surname, but I don't call myself this except as an echo of being spoken to.  It's all a makeshift of my passage.  When I rejoin the whole, this particularity will pass with me, for the I and the All ultimately are not to be distinguished.  "I am called Jack Gariss, but how little that matters in the sum of things."

       I am called Don, but like Jack, I shall be moving on.