Who am I? What is identity?

So what if I go through a midlife crisis every month or so. It is good to find out some of these answers, or at least ask them. What makes you, ? It is not what you do, not what you look like, who you hang out with, or even what you did in the past. (I think I wrote about this a while ago, but I am going to be taking it deeper, besides, this is how adhd works, you get the same ideas over and over again, you just take them further each time.) It is what you decide to do right now. What you did in the past will affect how easy it is to make the right decision, but that does not mean you will make the right one. And if you were a "bad" person, you still have the ability to make the right decision, it just might go against your accumulated experience up to that point.

(to let you in on some though processes, I am thinking and deciding how deep to go with this topic. What the hey, lets show you some thought process organization.

Topics I am thinking of covering

The core of consciousness, do we really decide our actions, and to what degree

Free will

divergence between self perception and others perceptions

Can we change who we are, and to what degree?

The influence of other people's perceptions of us and its affects on our identity

So I am sitting in starbucks(ina and Thornydale) using these questions to focus my thought on the topic at hand, and struggling in myself to see which ones relate more to the topic I want to discuss, and which would lead away from it, however relevant they may be. I will go with the last line of questioning, and maybe bring some of the others in as they relate. But in my mind, they are all inter related, in ways that I have not thought through yet. Lets get back to topic, if one does actually exist.

If I am aware that a specific person, call them Bob for fun, believes that I am uncoordinated, and I am aware his perception and belief of this, then I begin to act this way (mind trailing off to Quantum Leap episode that deals with this issue, no, come back mind, ok back for now). Well I am highly coordinated(count'em, juggle 5 balls, ride unicycle, like to swing dance, do magic tricks, manipulations, flourishes with cards, bla bla bla) I trip and am aware of what I did, and glance over to see if Bob noticed. Now I become aware of each instance of a misstep, or all of the normal things that people do, but when accentuated through the perceptual filter of heightened awareness, becomes uncoordinated behavior. I may begin to see myself as this klutzy person, and I start noticing every instance of this new formed identity, I start self fulfilling prophecies and perceptions. I have seen this scenario happen over and over again, someone forms opinion based of perception, I become aware of their perception and act according to it.

Here is a worse one. It is not really what believe, simply what you think they believe, that starts to affect you. This is where trouble happens. But how can you really know what others think about you? Here again multiple ideas come to mind.

I believe that you can never fully understand what someone thinks of you. Communication is imperfect at best, and humans do not have full disclosure with each other using this impaired communication. So, take deep breath and listen intently, we can never fully understand how other people perceive us, or what their opinion of us is. No matter what they say, there are underlying feelings that they will not want to express, or can't (because of impaired communication). Lets put an example on this one. You ask, "do these pants make me look fat?". Whomever you asked, can never go completely into their feelings on this subject, because of social constructs of the way communication should happen, (read don't be too honest, but try to hint at true opinion). What if this pant analyzer wanted to be completely honest, they would have to write a dissertation on their understanding of what fat was, how you fit into some of the categories that they list, and do not fit into others. Then their opinion would get completely lost in the shear volume of information that was trying to be conveyed.

Again, I could go off in thousands of directions with topics in the last few paragraphs, but I will bring it back to a point, a leaf on the twig of the branch on the topic of Identity. What are the implications of never knowing what someone's opinions of us truly are? You can only ever get a broad picture of if they like you, and a small amount of info about the specific topic. (I realize I am on thin ice of understanding, both my understanding, and the limits of simplifying down such a complex topic, with lots of other issues involved, but lets proceed). What are the implications? You decide how much to believe of what someone says. "Yes, those pants make you look fat!". Well, decide for yourself how much of this you want to believe. What is their concept of fat? What positive aspects about the pants are they neglecting to mention, simply to sway your judgment. They can never fully express their feelings and thoughts concerning the subject of your pants, and if they could express it, your understanding of what their whole point in the conversation would be confused at best (what are they, a professor of pants, PhD pants, why do they care so much about the positives and negatives of wearing low rise verses classic look).

And I believe I am approaching this line of understanding, where my point gets lost the deeper I try to explain it. That idea, that the more you try to explain something, the more confusing the point gets, intrigues me, and I think I wrote about it before. Must refine, must focus, must condense to a intelligible level so I can share it with others. Ok so back to the first sentence of this paragraph, I am done. I hope you learned a little, disagreed a little, and try to carry some of these ideas further than I have. Let me know if you do, and I will try to write about the ones I touched on, but didn't want to allow to confuse the topic.