totem

The plesiosaur's story kept on bugging me. Do you remember the plesiosaurus?
First I just thought he was just a quirky guy. But what if he had a point? I did, like most people, I suppose, lead a life based on decisions I had never really thought about. Did I become someone who wasn't I? Who am I anyway? What am I all about? The true self?
These were the questions that started to work my mind.

I knew, sooner or later I needed to go on a quest for myself.
So I tried different things. I ate substances I don't want to talk about here. I attached my head to weird technical devices nobody could explain sufficiently. I froze and sweated, attended several courses about several ways to find several sorts of truths and spent a fortune on it; I even found a horse that didn't bear a name and we travelled through some really, really barren landscape for a few days. (I didn't sit on it of course. Honestly, how would that look?)

Then I met that shaman.
The shaman told me about the totems.
He said, we all have our totem. An animal or being that represents where we originally stem from.
Not like grandpa, more like the primary root of our soul. Meeting my totem would reveal what I am all about.
Now that sounded more like what I was looking for.  The shaman agreed to help me find it.

Again I froze and sweated and went through more uncomfortable things. I began getting used to this, still I don't know why it helps. But that's the way to do it, said the old man.
I followed his advice, since I really wanted an answer to my question.
In the end I was back to the desert (without the horse this time). This time I was prepared for all I knew, there was nothing left to do but wait for my totem to appear. The shaman affirmed that it would come for sure, but I might need some patience.

First I was excited. Then I became calmer. Bored. Tired. And very thirsty. I sweated. I was cold. Days went by.

In the end I gave up.

That was the moment my totem appeared.
I was very surprised, I must say.
I got my answer now. I'm just not sure what to make of it.

The answer to my questions.