Who Am I?

I am writing this in response to a specific directive. I have been told recently, by many people, that I need to get in touch with my "inner self" in order to straighten out some "issues". Interesting. I haven't particularly noticed any "issues", but since I have been told about them so often, perhaps I should explore them. More correctly, perhaps I should explore the possibilities that they (the issues, not the people) do in fact exist. And so I begin.

Some sort of introduction is socially expected, I suppose, even on a website. (Although I have had the unpleasant experience of being considered an entity rather than as an individual. This seems to be especially prevalent in certain high-tech fields, where the company you work for is more important than who you (personally) are, and the extent to which you will have interaction with others is governed more by what networking potential you provide, rather than what you personal interests are. But I digress- I may explore this phenomenon in more depth at some future time.)

So exactly who am I? A difficult question. I seem to transform into various identities, based apparently upon my "issues". Today, for example, I am probably a young male, brown hair, blue eyes, mid-30-something, anxious to take on the world. Tomorrow, I may be a teen aged girl, full of giggles and hormones. After that, perhaps a grizzled "senior citizen" reflecting on what might have been. (Interesting- there never seem to be any "junior citizens"... ) And at still other times, seemingly more frequent of late, I envision myself to be a large, green, goggle-eyed monster with a penchant towards playing competitive tiddly-winks for fun and profit. But at any rate, I find myself being different at different times, and under different circumstances. No matter to me, of course- but this does seem to be tad disconcerting to those who know me personally. However, since most of you will only know me through these posted monologues, you, dear reader, will have to put up with the fact that I may morph unpredictably, and that you will have to try and keep up.

But perhaps this isn't the important factor. Most individuals that I have met, especially the more creative ones, appear to suffer from multiple personalities at least some of the time. They also tend to be highly focused, even annoyingly so, towards some passion in their life. Music, sports, puzzles, even the Internet - any of these can easily become an all-consuming passion for them. And so they exist, not day-to-day, but concert-to-concert, game-to-game, challenge-to-challenge, website-to-website. (Day-to-day, of course, is the default- that time-based system which reflects the diurnal cycles of light and dark which we all are supposed to understand "intuitively", whatever that means.) And when these people are being consumed with their chosen passion, they indeed seem to be a "different person", one whom is locked into a particular mindset, where all of their experience either relates to their passion or is discarded out-of-hand as irrelevant. And thus they seem to be "suffering" from the intensity of their passions.

Why did I say suffer? Certainly they are not physically suffering overmuch when following their passions... Indeed, they seem to be enjoying, even reveling, in their involvement. Rather, it seems to be those around them, those who do not share the same passions, that have given them the characteristic of "suffering". It would appear to me that this is based to a large degree on the insecurities of the observers, the almost overwhelming sense of being "left out", that causes them to tag another as "suffering" in this way.

Perhaps the "suffering" is brought on by a lack of understanding. For example, I do not understand how or why anyone would be a fanatic about heavyweight wrestling. To me, in my world, this must be responding to a genetic need for physical dominance over one's fellows. But I am also fully aware that this is my opinion only, that there are in fact those who do find some satisfaction, some fulfillment, in watching (or participating!) in such activities.

However, I do not feel the need to characterize anyone as "suffering", just because they are such a fanatic. To my obviously warped senses, I have no objection to your deciding that you wish to partake of such things as wrestling. And the fact that I find them a distasteful reminder of our Roman heritage will have no bearing (nor should it) on how you choose to spend your time. Perhaps this is a key point for me to remember- even though many well-meaning people have told me that what I choose to do is "my own business", in some way, if my choice doesn't coincide with their own, then somehow I have made the "wrong" decision. And therefore, I must have "issues" to work out, to deal with.

Life does appear to be far more complex than I had originally thought- the rules seem to change, depending on the company one keeps. And George Orwell was indeed onto something profound- even though all animals are equal, some do appear to be more equal than others. Perhaps this is the basis for the perception of my "issues"...

-sh