How do you identify yourself? Is it through race, political affiliation, career, social status? Who are you? Even if it’s just something you know in your head and in your heart, its worth taking a look at because it colors how you see the world and therefore how the world sees you.
The issue of race is not a new topic at all, in fact it is very old. Wars have been fought over it for millennia. Just look at the history of Brittain and Ireland if you want a glimpse. Even their mythology is built on layers of cultures and races coming and wiping out or subjugating the one before. In the past few years there have been movies made based on the romans coming to subjugate the native people who admit they aren’t the first native people, they are the victors from when they came to subjugate the locals. India’s history and mythology tells a similar story as well. Of course there is the Native American genocide if you want something local to North America and more recent. How do you identify racially? Is it by ethnic group, by color, by culture? Is it a polyglot of cultures so you are carving new territory that combines them both?
Or do you define yourself by what you do? “What did I become when I grew up?” Are you struggling because you can’t yet answer ‘what do I want to be when I grow up?’ even though you are supposed to be grown at this point? Is what you are not what you wanted to be? Is what you are just an easy label to tell others because it makes sense to them? Sometimes there is no easy label for who and what we identify with. Sometimes we grow out of our labels. That’s a raw and tender place to be, when the snake sheds it’s skin. Everything is immediate and rote responses to things don’t work or don’t make sense any more. So who are you now?
Do you define yourself by the social status you have? Financially, maritally, who are you? Are you married, in a committed relationship, single, single parent, divorced, seperated….Who are you? Do you have money? Do you have enough? Do you show with coupons and hunt for the sales or do you get whatever you want as soon as you want it and never truly want anything but have everything? Were you someone who had money and now you don’t? So who are you now? Where is your identity if it goes away? If it fades out leaving debt or lack behind or is taken from you by corporations who are “scared of the economy”?
Are you defined by your politics? Have you taken a side? Are you someone who has decided that the media is right and there are only two political stories, they are black/white and diametrically opposed to each other? Have you found that one is evil and completely inhuman, tragically deluded, and needs to be stopped? Are you proud of the work that one party or the other is doing and that this time they will get it right if only the other would stop interferring? Do you armchair quarter back politicians and their decisions? Do you vote your conscience? Do you work with local politicians, political groups, citizen groups, and your local authorities to improve the place where you live? Do you think globally but act locally? Do you throw up your hands and try to ignore all of it because it’s just too much or has no meaning? Who are you?
Identity is something we all have and as adults we choose how we present ourselves to the world. We can live in our skin or shy away from it, we can accept labels or let them fall to the ground and never touch us. We are who we know we are inside. Who are you?