our own identity, is a difficult thing to identify.
in one of the classes i shopped last week (HIST1020), Professor Amy asked us for three words we used to identify ourselves. then, she asked us again if these words changed depending on situation? somebody suggested that we pick traits that exemplify the group we are currently in, or when we are trying to distinguish ourselves.
are three words enough to describe ourselves?
identities are multi-faceted. i think of one’s identity is best reflected by his email inbox. our email inboxes get flooded with things, email from people around us, email about things we want to do, email about things we need to do. overtime, our inbox changes according to us, our interest, our dreams.
the meaning of identity requires each identity to be unique. in using the word identity, we are trying to make sure that we are the only people being referred to.
Greg, my roommate is one of those people who never wants to start anything. So 11:30pm one night, I unpacked his boxes, forced him to do what he hated at the worst time of the day. he ended up unpacking and hasn’t bothered to organize the things he said he would later on.
we don’t know what we want.
walking around the activities fair, i rethought freshman year, what did I do, what I didn’t do, and why I did/didn’t do what I did. but does what i do define who i am? part of the excitement of freshman year was the opportunities it afforded, the opportunity to experiment, try new things. i tell people i had an identity crisis last year. i tell them i didn’t know who i was, tried to have a new image of myself. and now i feel much more at ease with it. i accept myself being asian, maybe never assimilating into american culture (a shoutout to val wong and her beautiful poetry that made me realize this), or maybe it was meant to be. can we ever say we have found our identity, found ourselves?
identity is a changing thing. no one person stays stagnant. identity/personality changes, it’s like a pendulum going back and forth. and i think identity is how far does the pendulum go on one side and the other. where do we stop? is that our identity? everything changes, even we do. identity cards may not change but we do. discomfort in our setting: is it because we haven’t found our identity? how do we explain that thought that we just don’t feel good?
and have i, in reflecting on my identity “crisis” in freshman year, truly found myself now? or just another stage on our life long search for a maybe imaginary true self?
code of meaning 