musings..
Within the span of 27 years...I have undertaken many different identities...i, in essence may just be a shape shifter...my ability to take on a new persona is almost frightening.
its growing old..i am less and less interested in being someone i'm not, trying to impress my peers or prove myself worthy..'i just want to be myself'...a comman coined cliche..
so this leaves me questioning..who am i really..
is there anything i possess which is truely my own...everything i know has been borrowed from someone else..
in so many words...we all copy cat what we see...our identities are pieced together from multiple encounters with the outside world, its rules and our closest kin.
my mother taught me to dress, eat and set in place my framework for viewing the world..my friends and popular culture set in motion my choices concerning fashion, music, even lingo...
'cool culture' tapped its foot, cleaving my decisions, announcing aloud what i could and could not do..
'christian culture' shook its head and frowned....
my family agreed...
why can't this girl get it together...?
i tried, gosh did i try...
Emptying every vat of culture i attempted to assimilate myself in look and gesture..
gaining supporters for a season, I learned to play along....
copy cat school complete..i graduated with honors...
but then...
i always seemd to leak.
opening at the seams, my akward self rushes to spill all over the floor...
much to my despair, the facade fragments and I am immediately branded 'wierd'.
quite overwhelming for a ten year old.
not concerning for the other ten year olds..
this is not a rant...a whine or a self pity parade...
its the reality of my experience...
a cycle of events which replays on repeat..
until the present.
so here i am being dramatic..i know who i am..getting back to the basics of self..
the self which was orchestrated and ordered
the self which was molded and quartered
the self who was taught and disordered
the self.
posted by babs at 10:49 AM
4 Comments:
Hmmm.....
You're, in some ways, resembling John Locke's "Tabula Rasa", the idea that we are all born as a blank slate, and that it is culture/experience that shapes us to be who we are. Or, as Plato argues, is knowledge/character innate?
One of the questions of the ages...
It seems to me that both have a strong element of truth.
Cutos for being so honest and transparent!
Bless ya.
thanks Tony..
i agree with both plato and john locke..but i admit i have a soft spot for locke.
i definately lean toward certain things...
most of what i am is a true reflection of myself..
but....there are also a lot of add-ons which are not...its hard to sift...
it is interesting though to ponder whether it is possible to have a truly self inspired thought...i'm not sure what i think..
"borrowing" from others made me think of Star Trek II - arguably the best movie in the series; and it was made on a shoestring budget.
They grabbed up stuff from the trash, other movie sets, spray painted it, glued it together, and voila, the movie got made. Good camera shots, set design, etc, all contributed.
They created something fascinating and engaging from spare parts, but the parts fit together like they had been made that way. In the end no one noticed the borrowed-ness of the stuff, but the completed picture.
Perhaps borrowing the best of others is just human nature. I love hopeful sci-fi because I see a mirror of who I want to be.
Maybe we become more ourselves when we recognize that even though we imitate the beauty in others, we'd have been more than happy to have invented it in the first place.
I guess the trick is finding what fits and what doesn't, eh?
I like imitating your independence Barb, and your hope.
I love recycled art. I love experiments, even if they flop because there's often a huge learning curve in the process.
I am …when I'm with. Without the 'other' I am again a blank canvas, a fallen tree which no one heard crash. I need and am needed. I think we compliment each other when we copy. Perhaps part of being human is our ability to borrow from the old and make new.
Only God can create from nothing.
Cheerio!
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