I discovered my True Self only recently. It came in an epiphany while I was at a meeting of my rod and gun club. I was eating the club supper: dirty-water hot dogs and coffee salvaged from a furniture stripping shop. As I thought over my membership, I found out what made the club so special and why I had joined it:

To be a member, you need a paunch. I had to use a pillow until I grew my very own paunch

You are required to use "fucking" at least five times in every sentence. The club's recent letter to the local Town Council was not well received

If one wears anything but a ball cap, dirty jeans, very old flannel shirt, that person is labeled homosexual and he is immediately killed. The Chairman of the Execution and Disposal Committee is very respected; he always looks well-fed

Everybody shoots skeet or else no one talks to you. For non-shooters, skeet is shooting at clay targets thrown in a known pattern. With practice, nearly anyone can be good at it. It can be boring but members have high tolerance for boredom.

Every fall, there is a pheasant hunt on the property. Members distribute a number of them on the club property; then other members and their dogs are unleashed to kill them. One discerning member calls those pheasants "chickens" and proposed that they be stomped to death rather then be shot. It was his idea to save money on cartridges.

I used to be a dweeb before I joined: suits, ties, imported beer, books (usually in obscure Indo-European languages), tea, imported car, a liberal----the whole thing. Thank heaven I joined the club and my True Self has been revealed. I am now a Real American. I can tell dirty stories; I can be part of a conversation about how to fix a leaking roof. I can spend money on things I really want, not things to impress others. Before, I was unsatisfied; I wanted a new car as soon as I had bought one; now I find comfort in my Ford150. The older it gets, the better it is. I can be bored, to, and it feels good.

Don't laugh at it. Try finding your True Self without going to a commune (if you can find one) or becoming a religious fanatic. Just get an old shotgun, engineers' boots, join a rod and gun club and settle in to true being.