Netflix recently released season two of the animated television series Arcane. It may not be to your taste as it is based on the computer game League of Legends, however it absolutely transcends those origins. It has truly excellent story telling, in a detailed world, with complex compelling characters who grow and change throughout the story.

It really is a remarkable achievement in these days of risk averse studios and writing/editing by committee.

I came across this quote while watching the last episode of season two from one of the main characters:

“We build our own prisons.  Bars forged of oaths, codes, and commitments.  Walls of self doubt and accepted limitation.  We inhabit these cells, these identities, and call them ‘us’.”

Silco – Arcane, Season 2, Episode 8

This quote really touched me. In context it was extremely powerful, exposing the inner conflict of one of the protagonists. But it also well describes the lives that many of us live – lives that we may mistakenly interpret as being representative of who we literally are.

But we are not these things. Our oaths, codes, and commitments are choices that we make, often without understanding their significance, or how they will effect us. Self doubt and the failure to imagine that we can be more, do more, keep us tied to lives that may ultimately be unrewarding or unhappy.

However – all it takes to change our lives and to discover who we are is to examine those things and to question the assumptions that they are built on.

I have re-invented my life and my career many times in my life. Mostly it has been through necessity. Sometimes through curiosity and choice. Every time it was more or less difficult and scary. But I have learned a lot about myself in that time buy examining my failures and my successes and searching for what brought actual happiness to me through all of that. 

I know: that I can adapt. That I can work hard. That I can find solutions when things get difficult.

Most of all though I have discovered that who I am – “me” – is not about money, or status, or what I own. What really matters – what is really the heart of “me” is freedom, creativity, building, creating, learning, and challenging myself.

What I know is that when my life is arranged in such a way that I can pursue those things then I can be happy and fulfilled.

I often meet women who are living in a situation where their relationships or their lives don’t bring them the intimacy and physical pleasure that they want and need. Taking the step of visiting a male escort like myself to fill that need may bring you up against the “bars” and “walls” of Silco’s quote. And they are certainly difficult to move past. But if we can start to identify them – question them, then we are one step closer to stepping past them and creating the life that we really want to lead.

John