What if Don Quixote was Right?
That to become the truest essence of yourself is just a matter of choosing to become what you are attracted to the most.
Before he was Don Quixote de La Mancha, he was Alonso Quijano. Alonso became consumed and obsessed with stories of being a knight errant in a time when that ideology and representation were dead.
He did not just allow his attraction to remain surface level. He decided to let his unconscious mind communicate with him through that attraction, allowing him to see what lay beneath the initial layers. which was this:
A desire to live a life of meaning, values, and purpose that transcended the status quo of greed, shallowness, and disconnection.
Tired of merely wanting to become this knight errant, he breaks. He surrenders. And he creates a life that is fully aligned with that deeper longing. He doesn’t just believe he is a knight errant, he becomes one. He becomes the person who embodies everything Alonso desires. He becomes Don Quixote.
Alonso realizes a deeper inner truth, and he has the courage to embody it despite the numerous attacks, doubts, and interventions from society.
We can easily say this was just a character acting out due to his discontent with life and society, or that he was merely crazy or delusional. But to believe that is not only to reject the notion that there is intelligence underneath our attractions, it also diminishes the impact of so many historical figures who stood for an unseen vision of reality. One that helped lead the way for future transformation and liberation.
People such as: Sun Ra, Muhammad Ali, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jimi Hendrix, Galileo, Harriet Tubman, Joan of Arc, James Baldwin, Nikola Tesla, Frida Kahlo, Siddhartha Gautama, Jesus, Alan Turing, and others like them.
Many of us don’t have the courage to not only stand by our values and attractions but to become them. We fear that if we do, we will be ridiculed, rejected, arrested, misunderstood, and most of all, that we will not belong. But Don Quixote reminds us what true belonging is. As researcher Brené Brown states in her book Braving the Wilderness:
“True belonging is the spiritual practice of believing in and belonging to yourself so deeply that you can share your most authentic self with the world and find sacredness in both being a part of something and standing alone in the wilderness.”
By becoming Don Quixote and being seen in public as Don Quixote, Alonso models what it might look like if an individual truly practiced the idea of true belonging. Many of us (myself included) confuse belonging with fitting in. Brené Brown also writes:
“Fitting in is about assessing a situation and becoming who you need to be in order to be accepted. True belonging, by contrast, doesn’t ask you to change who you are; it requires you to be who you are.”
Alonso could have just found a way to live by his values and with attractions and conform them to his surroundings, but he choose to become his values. To embody his attraction.
So next time you find yourself judging those who walk a different path, or find yourself hiding parts of who you are out of shame or fear.
Remember the courage of Don Quixote. His mere presence is a reminder that we can live a brilliant and magical life.