because i can

How can you care for another person
unless you can already care for yourself.
What does it mean to care for yourself?
First, you have to know who you are.
Then you have to identify your needs.
It sounds easy, but you'll find your overlap with other people
and what their needs are, comes into play.
Or perhaps it doesn't at all. In which case,
you are selfishly living.
And that isn't fully living either.
Because who we are depends on our relationships with others.
If there were no other people, would a hermit still be a hermit?
Which parts of my life have meaning because they involve others,
and which do not.
Sometimes I feel like my thoughts are my own, solely.
Others may appear in them, but only I know their true content.
And in my thoughts we conjecture about the thoughts of others
and we converse openly about our thoughts together
and we create visions of what our world is
and who we are, together.
We feel at home when others share our thoughts
and when we can share them with others.
But these thoughts are not us.
They aren't who we really are,
Deep down, at the cores of our beings.
What is at our core?
Except an empty vessle
which beauty sometimes shines through.
When we open up to who we are t the core, we find
a black hole yes, but shining like the brightest white star,
full of love and devoid of blackness other than that which is empty of connotation.
No good or evil here, only being.
Empty perfect being.