Illusion

What if memory is just reconstruction? What if the roles you play aren't the sum of who you are? In this episode, Lu explores illusion as the mechanism that keeps us building coherence where there is none. She shares a personal story about looking at a family photo and recognizing the woman but feeling no connection, the biological paradox of six elements creating infinite variety, and why the question "Who am I?" dissolves into silence. This is about noticing when you're creating illusions and learning to exist in the not-knowing.

SHOW NOTES:

IN THIS EPISODE:

• Illusion as the friend that keeps us in the loop
• Memory as reconstruction, not recording
• Personal story: the family photo and the stranger you recognize
• The evolving roles: music teacher, piano teacher, educator, podcaster, filmmaker
• The biological paradox: six elements, infinite variety
• The unanswerable question: "Who am I?"
• The practice: noticing when you're creating coherence

QUOTE: "The self isn't a thing you find. It's a process you're always in the middle of."

SHARE YOUR STORY: lu@leslancreativestudio.com

NEXT EPISODE: Imperfection – Embracing the cracks in a perfectly imperfect world.

Connect with Open Heart Podcast:

• Website: leslancreativestudio.com
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Thank you for joining this journey of openness and self-discovery. If this episode resonated, please consider subscribing and sharing with someone who might also benefit from my personal stories and insights.

RESOURCES MENTIONED:

Lu's first documentary: Take a Bow: The Ingrid Clarfield Story (2011)

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

What if the person you see in old photos is a stranger? What if memory itself is an illusion? What if the question, who am I, has no answer? Just silence. Welcome to Open Heart Podcast. I'm Lou Leslan, your host. This is a podcast where we share ideas, stories, and questions with an open heart so we can be kinder and wiser to ourselves and each other. Every week we'll discuss a topic where I share my observation, ideas, and questions with you, and I would love to hear your thoughts, comments, and reflections too. Please send them to Lou at Lesland Creative Studio dot com. Today's topic is illusion. In episode four, we explore human bias. We identify the loop of self improvement. The self trying to fix itself is the same self that created the problems in the first place. We laughed at the cosmic joke. But here's what keeps us in the loop illusion. Illusion is the friend that encourages us to keep doing what we're doing and expecting a different result. Try harder, work on yourself. You'll get there. Just one more book, just one more course, one more system. Illusion whispers. This time will be different, but it never is. Because the self doing the trying is still the same biased self. The lens is still the same unclear lens. The construct is still the same construct. Today we explore illusion not as an abstract concept, but as the mechanism that keeps us building coherence where there is none, creating narratives where there is only silence, inventing selves where there is only process. If the self is a construct, how stable is that construct? Can we even know who we are? I'm holding a family photo. My youngest daughter, seven months old in my arms. I recognize the woman in the picture, but I don't have any meaningful connection to her. She's fulfilling the role mother, protector, caregiver. The posture, the expression, she looks convincing, but who was she? I don't know. Yet we look at photos and think that's who I was. That's the illusion. We cannot remember what we did yesterday. We cannot remember what we said five minutes ago. We can barely recall what we ate last night. But we look at a photo from ten years or more ago and claim to know that person. How? Memory is not a recording. Every time we remember something, we are creating it again, adding new details, removing old ones, building coherence from fragments. We think memory gives us access to the past, but it doesn't. It gives us a story about the past that serves the present. That person in the photo, the one holding the infant, performing the role of mother, was an elusive being existing in that moment in time. And so was the person I was yesterday and five minutes ago, and so am I now. Over the years, I've been many people music teacher, piano teacher, early childhood project manager, certified music garden teacher, educator, podcaster, filmmaker. Each role was real. I wasn't pretending, but here's what I noticed. I keep inventing new roles, not because I've found myself, but because I need them to keep going, to keep learning, to keep becoming. The roles give me direction, they give me purpose, they give me something to answer when someone asks, What do you do? But none of them are the sum of who I am. The self is ever changing, ever transforming, which means the self isn't a thing you find, it's a process you are always in the middle of. So why do we create these illusions? Why do we build coherent narratives about who we were, who we are, who we are becoming? Because we need them to survive. Illusion gives us temporary distractions to keep going. It gives us a sense of continuity in life that's constantly changing. It gives us stories to tell ourselves when the alternative is silence. We create illusions to serve our need to get what we want without knowing why we want what we want. It's a survival mechanism. We need a story, we need a rose, we need a coherent self, even if it's an illusion. Here's something that deepens the mystery. At the most fundamental biological level, we're made of six elements oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, phosphorus. Same building blocks as everyone else. Yet somehow, this combination creates infinite variety, different personalities, different thoughts, different preferences, different fears, different ambitions, different abilities. This complex organic system continues to generate itself. How? We don't know. So we ask the question, who am I? Silence. We simply cannot provide a satisfactory answer. No two people can agree with each other. No single answer holds across time. No definition stays stable. The self is not just a construct, it's an ever shifting illusion we cannot even pin down. And if we cannot answer who am I? If the question itself dissolves into silence, then what are all the shoulds built on? All those rules about who you are supposed to be, how a woman should move through the world, how a mother should behave, how an immigrant should assimilate, how a creative should produce illusions built on illusions. If the self is unknowable and ever changing, then all the societal narratives, the cultural expectations, the generational shoulds, their projections onto a moving target. There are restraints we think are real, but they are not. There are stories we agree to follow without questioning whether they are ours. Here's the practice. Notice when you are creating coherence. Notice when you look at an old photo and claim to know that person. Notice when you tell yourself a story about who you are, who you were, who you were becoming. Notice when you invent a new role to keep going. And notice the silence when you're asked, Who am I? You don't need to feel it, you don't need to answer. You can exist in the not knowing. That's the practice. Not disconstructing every illusion, not tearing down every story, but noticing when you are building them, seeing them for what they are. Temporary, useful, illusive. Here's what happens when you stop needing the illusion of coherence. You can change without betraying yourself. You can contradict yourself without being a hypocrite. You can become someone new without losing who you were, because there was never a fixed you to lose in the first place. The self is ever changing, ever transforming. That's not a problem to solve. We create illusions to survive, memory, roles, identity, coherent narratives about who we are. But underneath it all, silence. The question who am I has no satisfactory answer, and that's okay. You don't need to know. You can drop the story and keep transforming anyway. Once you drop the illusion of coherence, you can embrace what always been true. You are imperfect, messy, quacked, always becoming, never finished. And that's where we're going next. Imperfection. I'd love to hear your story, questions, thoughts. Please send it to Lou at Lesland Creative Studio dot com. Thank you for joining me for this episode of Open Heart. This is a podcast where we share ideas, stories, and questions with an open heart so we can be kinder and wiser to ourselves and each other. Take care of the same.