Identity of the Season
Sep. 29th, 2009 04:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pandora_parrotIn 2005, I began a massive series of changes that would not slow down for years. It was a massive revolution in perspective, to begin to explore things that were interesting to me instead of those things that would earn me the most brownie points with the people around me. I changed careers. I changed genders. I began to explore my sexuality. I began to explore various hobbies that might interest me. Gaming of various sorts. I was starting to gain access to a large social network of people. I was discovering geeks, gamers, pagans, hippies, activists, and all sorts of other folks.
I was creating a whole new person from stardust. Now, four years later, the majority of things that are in my life that are important and significant have only been around for a year or two. The things that people know me for have only been around for as long as 4 years, at best. The person I was prior to 2005 had little to nothing in common with the person that I am today.
This has had some interesting results: My whole life for the past few years has been "identity of the season." Every few months, I've got a new interest, a new massive life change, a new... whatever. My online profiles, personal interests, personal activists, hobbies, friendship networks, relationship networks, and more have changed rapidly, sometimes on the order of a few months. I've dived into whole concepts of self to claim them as my own only to cast them aside a few months later.
I've been exploring various ways of being, trying to find a way of being that feels... genuine to me. A way of existing that feels like who I am, instead of who I am expected to be. With a lack of other information to go on, I've based my identity-du-jour on various things that I find. Cultural stereotypes of geeks and gamers. Friends that embody certain characteristics that I want to try being. Characters in fiction or in the media. From each source, I keep some elements and toss away others.
I've never known who I am, so I'm constructing a self out of the scraps that others have left behind. Out of dim memories from high school and earlier that speak to a more accurate representation of who I might have been had my will not been crushed. Pasting together a pastiche of images that approximate the fuzzy outlines of self that I can see when I close my eyes, calm my thoughts, and listen to the silence.
I think, at long last, that the period of dramatic, constant, and sudden change may be slowing down. Since I began rock climbing last December, I've been pointed in a direction of self-development that seems to involve stabilizing the whirlwind that I've been riding upon. From my perspective, I identify a great deal with the identity that existed in me last December, which leads me to believe that I've been relatively stable since then in terms of seeking to find self. Indeed, further evidence can be acquired by looking at my social networks, activities, and hobbies. My relationships, friendships, and more have stayed relatively stable in this time, with little decomposition or destabilization. Most of the change I've experienced since then has been more growth oriented. Additions instead of subtractions.
It's not just external understandings of me. It's not how people perceive me or what I've done under a new name. It's internal understanding as well. Building the internal machinery to ask the questions to get the answers to "Who am I?" "What do I want?" "What do I like?" "Where do I want to go from here?" And then putting foot to path along the journey that the answers drive me towards. Wandering as I refine my questions and learn more of the answers.
It would be nice to have a stable self with which to start establishing a history. A stable set of answers that drive me in a direction that I can make progress towards. My personal tale is one that starts in 2007 by most accounts. By completing the social part of my transition, I started to exist. My career, hobbies, friends, etc. are almost entirely things that have been created since then. This being... The approximation of self that people identify as me, is a newborn with just a little over 2 years of existence in the world. 2 short years of puzzling out the answers. 2 years of travel along a self determined path.
It's the ultimate project: Me. Perhaps I've finally found the direction that the lines on the paper have drawn me to. Perhaps I've finally seen the sculpture within the rock, and can start to carve. Perhaps I've still only just scratched the surface of who I am to become.
I was creating a whole new person from stardust. Now, four years later, the majority of things that are in my life that are important and significant have only been around for a year or two. The things that people know me for have only been around for as long as 4 years, at best. The person I was prior to 2005 had little to nothing in common with the person that I am today.
This has had some interesting results: My whole life for the past few years has been "identity of the season." Every few months, I've got a new interest, a new massive life change, a new... whatever. My online profiles, personal interests, personal activists, hobbies, friendship networks, relationship networks, and more have changed rapidly, sometimes on the order of a few months. I've dived into whole concepts of self to claim them as my own only to cast them aside a few months later.
I've been exploring various ways of being, trying to find a way of being that feels... genuine to me. A way of existing that feels like who I am, instead of who I am expected to be. With a lack of other information to go on, I've based my identity-du-jour on various things that I find. Cultural stereotypes of geeks and gamers. Friends that embody certain characteristics that I want to try being. Characters in fiction or in the media. From each source, I keep some elements and toss away others.
I've never known who I am, so I'm constructing a self out of the scraps that others have left behind. Out of dim memories from high school and earlier that speak to a more accurate representation of who I might have been had my will not been crushed. Pasting together a pastiche of images that approximate the fuzzy outlines of self that I can see when I close my eyes, calm my thoughts, and listen to the silence.
I think, at long last, that the period of dramatic, constant, and sudden change may be slowing down. Since I began rock climbing last December, I've been pointed in a direction of self-development that seems to involve stabilizing the whirlwind that I've been riding upon. From my perspective, I identify a great deal with the identity that existed in me last December, which leads me to believe that I've been relatively stable since then in terms of seeking to find self. Indeed, further evidence can be acquired by looking at my social networks, activities, and hobbies. My relationships, friendships, and more have stayed relatively stable in this time, with little decomposition or destabilization. Most of the change I've experienced since then has been more growth oriented. Additions instead of subtractions.
It's not just external understandings of me. It's not how people perceive me or what I've done under a new name. It's internal understanding as well. Building the internal machinery to ask the questions to get the answers to "Who am I?" "What do I want?" "What do I like?" "Where do I want to go from here?" And then putting foot to path along the journey that the answers drive me towards. Wandering as I refine my questions and learn more of the answers.
It would be nice to have a stable self with which to start establishing a history. A stable set of answers that drive me in a direction that I can make progress towards. My personal tale is one that starts in 2007 by most accounts. By completing the social part of my transition, I started to exist. My career, hobbies, friends, etc. are almost entirely things that have been created since then. This being... The approximation of self that people identify as me, is a newborn with just a little over 2 years of existence in the world. 2 short years of puzzling out the answers. 2 years of travel along a self determined path.
It's the ultimate project: Me. Perhaps I've finally found the direction that the lines on the paper have drawn me to. Perhaps I've finally seen the sculpture within the rock, and can start to carve. Perhaps I've still only just scratched the surface of who I am to become.
