REAL ANSWERS TO COMMON QUESTIONS

The Wine Valley Vibe: That Friday Feeling

Question: Who are you?

Answer: The product of my ever-changing consciousness since birth.

Which boils down to precisely who I am this moment, not before, because our imagery of the past is rife with false memories and stories constructed mostly by our self-righteous egos.

Or as Thomas Moore put it: “I’m flow, going where the stream takes me, even if it means meandering, getting blocked or flooded.”

Question: What’s your name?

Answer: Look, I got thrown into this, same as you, by what German philosopher Martin Heidegger called Thrownness. Which essentially means thrown into a particular place and time and family not of my choosing. This isn’t a complaint. First of all I’m alive—and that’s a blessing unto itself. Second, I got lucky. Thrown into Southern California, the mid-1950s, a very fine family. And I got tagged with a name. But is it really my name or an identity thrown upon me—along with cultural conditioning ever since that makes me think and behave a certain way?

As part of my spiritual journey I’ve looked back to the ancestors who delivered me for clues about who I am. The fact that after so many centuries of evolution I was selected against all odds to be born into consciousness is not only miraculous (for me and for you) but suggests that the universe is perfect in every way. How could it not be if I am/you are here, sentient, thinking, being? And though you and I will one day “die” (I prefer to call it passing on or transcendence) we could not have lived a human experience without transcending beyond it.  

So, my name is Robert Henry Eringer. My mother, who is English, chose Robert (I’ve never been a Bob, though I have an affinity for Bobby or Robby even if few call me that and I’ve never encouraged it.)  Henry was my paternal grandfather’s name—and I’m proud to carry it forward.  (“Like a singin’ bird and a croakin’ toad, I got a name,” crooned Jim Croce, “and I carry it with me like my daddy did… rollin’ me down the highway, movin’ ahead so life won’t pass me by.”) 

The name Eringer came from a gray zone in eastern Poland that was often Russian and occasionally Prussian though if you look at books of ancient family crests the surname Eringer is identified as Austrian. (A quarter century ago I commissioned the crafting of a gold pinkie ring with the Eringer crest, mostly a bundle of fleurs-de-lys. Was this an exercise in labeling myself or an affectation?)  But the name Eringer mostly emanates from the town of Heremence (Eringer) in the Valais canton in southern Switzerland, home to the Eringer cow.

My mother’s maiden name is Stanley and derives from an illustrious noble family that can be traced back a thousand years to the Norman Conquest of England. (A few of my ancestors—Adam de Aldithley and his two sons, Lydulph and Adam—accompanied William the Conqueror on his invasion of England in 1066 and remained thereafter on land gifted to them by the new king).

My maternal grandmother’s maiden name was Kalfayan. Her parents were Armenians who lived in Istanbul and, though Armenians (being Christians) were seriously oppressed by the Turks (being Moslems) who attempted genocide against them, my great-grandfather Azarik managed to acquire a “get out of genocide alive” card for himself and his family because the emperor collected the rugs his company wove.

So taking all into account my name should be Stanley Kalfayan Eringer. But given a choice I would have named myself Bobby de Lathom (a family that Stanley males married into around 700 years ago).

Because, as French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre pointed out, we are all free to invent ourselves.

I bet you’re sorry you asked.