Be who you would've been otherwise
Without struggle there can still be progress
Lately, I’ve been glued to my Kindle. I’m reading Sky Full of Elephants, and by now I’ve probably told everyone I know about how good this book is.
The synopsis is what drew me in:
“Imagine a world where one day all the white people died, and Black people were left to redefine society.“
Um, hell yeah!? This is the afrofuture shit I live for. Add to cart. Immediately.
Not only is the writing phenomenal, but it’s been a long time since a book has left me with so many pieces of myself to reflect on. The biggest of them being, what would you do if one day the one thing that held you back just up and disappeared? What reason then would you have not to become who you always could’ve been?
“They’re gone. Now you got no excuses for who you can be. So who you gonna be? Same as you were? Or everything you would’ve been otherwise?”
– Ethel, Sky Full of Elephants
No spoilers, but there are a lot of things in my life I wish would walk into the Hudson and drown themselves. Fear, anxiety, worry — all things that weigh me down. Take writing as an example. If I had to describe my typical creative process, it’d look something like this:
Come up with a dope concept, then doubt it has much value.
Write it anyway, but worry it won’t be received well.
Stare at the finish product in fear, and still find the courage to execute.
It’s not productive. And yet, something about this cycle provides a comfort I can’t really explain. The barriers have become expectations, and without them, the flow feels unnatural. I hate it, but I’ve come to accept it as just another part of the process. My known unknowns.
Barriers are great excuses that way. They make failures feel justified and hesitations feel rational. They give shape. Something to fight against, something to prove. But as I sit with the core tension of the book, what would you become in the absence of your barriers, what should feel like freedom actually feels like restriction.
When confronted with the question of who I am without my limitations, I’m stuck with the realization that I don’t know how to move when nothing’s holding me back.
“Same as you were? Or everything you would’ve been otherwise?”
That’s the phrase that’s been wrestling back and forth in my head because if given the opportunity, who would I be otherwise? When there is no need for resilience because there is no resistance. No fight for peace because there is no war. No one to tell me who to be, so I become what I want. Without an enemy to fight against, at best, I might feel liberated; in reality, I think I’d feel undefined.
Truthfully, I don’t know when my identity became so tied to my struggle.
Maybe when every win started to feel like it needed to be earned, or when my worth became measured by how much pressure I could push through. Because the only thing worse than getting something through privilege is getting it through perceived laziness.
That’s why when I hear things like “without struggle there is no progress” or the idea that I have to “get it out the mud,” intrinsically, there’s this need for validation. To walk away with bruises is confirmation that you fought for what you have. And if struggle is the prerequisite for progress, then if something doesn’t make you push or suffer, how can it possibly be valuable?
So I started believing that work is supposed to hurt a little.
That tension is proof I’m doing something real.
If I ever did stop measuring my worth by resistance, I think I’d measure it by how much joy I felt or the consistency it inspired instead. How fully I could show up to the things I love. The way ideas move freely from my mind to my heart and then out into the world without needing to break through fear or doubt first. That kind of progress would feel like flow.
But when I picture who I’d be otherwise, I don’t see some alternate version of me. It’s the real me standing in full force. Soft and trusting, the woman who moves through the world with an open heart, the one who’s fearless because she believes in magic. Someone who doesn’t need to earn her own approval. Who I would be otherwise is the part of me that’s always been there waiting for permission to live without her armor.
On the other hand, I enjoy the work. I crave the high that comes after the fight. I love the win as much as I hate the battle, and without that, I don’t really know what would fill the gap because effort and striving are the most satisfying parts of the climb.
Maybe that’s what’s so haunting about the question. The realization that who I’d be otherwise is the same as who I am. And I don’t know if that’s comforting or terrifying.
