What's the point?

While I was traveling, surrounded by Buddhist temples and the Muslim call to prayer, I saw something. What I saw was the reality of my past two years' experience at the zen center. The reality, at least the way I saw it, was that this is just a religious (or spiritual) experience. Lots of people have it, lots of people find great joy in it, lots of  people need it. What I had thought was this profound, unique, life changing experience was actually quite common, everyone seemed to be doing it, in their own way.
That got me thinking about the zen center, and the fact that all it is, is a building. And the zendo? It's just a basement. The whole place used to be a boarding house for Jewish women. I pictured all the people who have lived in the building all these years, all those women, all the abbots/ abbesses, all the students, and it felt like this open building with all these people flowing in and out of it.
Then I thought about Paul. I realized that he's just a person. He's an amazing teacher and has such wisdom to offer but it's still just coming from a person. He's just a person, like everyone else.
Then I thought about me. I'm just a person too, like everyone else.
And then I got confused.
Because if I'm a person, like everyone else, and I'm the same as everyone else, if there really is no self, then what's the point? If all I am is just a person, then what I am doing? I don't have anything to offer. I'm no different from anyone else. What's the point of talking? What's the point of offering my opinion or suggesting things? What's the point of expressing myself, if my 'self' doesn't exist?
This wasn't a feeling of woe is me- like I have nothing to offer or I suck- it was just the reality of it. I really am just a person, that's all.
So then, every time I thought about writing on the blog I thought, "What?! Who are you to offer advice? Who are you to think you've got this figured out? You're not special, you don't know anymore than anyone else."
So I stopped writing on the blog; because really, I had nothing to offer, I was no different from anyone else.
I kept going to zazen, and service, and soji every morning. None of this made me question my practice, I knew I was going to keep doing that no matter what. But I was still confused about the point of all this. I just kept coming back to this question of "If I have nothing to offer, because there is no self, then what am I doing?" I mean, I know I'm not the same as everyone else, but it also felt really truthful, this fact that I actually am the same as everyone else. I'm a human, we're all humans, and in that sense, we're all the same.
I requested dokusan with Paul, because I thought this was a big question and I couldn't seem to answer it on my own. But in the mean time, I kept asking myself, "If you have nothing to offer, what are you doing? You really do have nothing to offer, so what's the point?"
And then, as I was opening the pantry door one morning, another question popped in to my head: "What if it isn't about offering? What if it isn't about what you can give? What if it isn't about what you do to make things better or worse? What if it has nothing to do with adding or contributing?"
I thought about zen, and emptiness, and "right" and "balanced" and the fullness of things that are neither empty nor full, and just letting things be as they are and I thought that maybe, I'm just supposed to be. Maybe the point of this is for me to be whatever this person is, no matter what I turn out to do. Not like all irresponsible and whatever happens, happens; more like: the best you can do is be yourself fully. In fact, it's all you can do. It's not so much that you have something to offer, it's just you have something to be.
I considered this idea for a while: that I'm not supposed to offer anything, that the world isn't waiting for me to save it, that I don't have some purpose to fulfill, that all I can do is be, whatever this self is turning out to be.
Then, a few days later, I thought about zazen. I thought about how much it helps me to see myself. And I wonder, if the point is to be yourself- to manifest whatever this thing is that's inside you- maybe zazen helps you to manifest yourself by helping you to know who that person is.
I have no idea. I don't know what I'm doing at all. But after I decided that it was more about being than it was about offering, I reread a few posts on my blog. In them, I saw myself. I saw that apparently, a blog about the zen center, is part of how I manifest.
So I'm writing again. It still feels a little self- righteous to be writing posts about all of this when I have no idea what I'm talking about. But I guess it really isn't about that. It's about seeing that this is who I am, part of me at least, so I might as well be it.