Dear World: Identity
Dear World,
Like many males, I lack many a thing. I lack confidence, I lack direction, and I also lack female genitalia.
But there's one thing I feel I lack more than others: I lack identity.
I, being the idiotic idealist that I am, assumed that all my problems can be solved with the use of Google. One of the biggest problems that I've re-realised in recent days is that I really need to sort out my confidence.
So, because I didn't know how to myself, and those who I asked didn't seem to know either, I Googled "how to get confidence".
There where many sites there, all offering mainly the same type of advice. One piece of advice was to write everything you see that is good and bad about you. As an example for things that might be good, many of the sites suggested things like "good listener" or "good sense of humour".
And those are the things that confuse me about life.
This might seem a bit odd or slightly bizarre, or something else that means the same thing, but I don't understand how people can honestly say that they have a good sense of humour or something similar without proof.
Because, you know, humour is relative. Something I find hilarious will probably offend every other humanoid in existence bar a few. Does that mean that I have a bad sense of humour?
And by the by, I'm not just focusing on humour, I'm thinking about everything, every single descriptive word that can be connected to man.
I was doing something I do best recently, which was reading people's blogs on the internet, and I came across some people's biographies. Snippets of information that the writer believes will show others their real colours or something similar.
Some people say that they are a loving, kind person who can write prose like the pros. Others say that they are some sort of angel of comedy or something. I don't know, I thought too much about the "prose like the pros" joke to think of other examples.
And then there's me, a 20-year-old humanoid in possession of a penis, having no idea how to describe myself.
I'd like to think that I'm an honest, funny person. Someone that people can rely on and feel comfortable to turn to when they need help or something. But in all honestly, I can't believe that. I only really believe what others tell me I am.
And before I hear the words "that's not right, you've got to be your own person, just be yourself and believe whatever you want to be" and stuff, hear me out. Or read me out. The latter makes more sense, but somewhat sounds slightly disgusting.
There is only a few things that I know I am. I am, in the most basic state, alive. I am a human, then a male, and then Welsh, then a student. Other than that, I have no idea how to characterise myself apart from being a Welsh male student of the human variety.
In my thought process - which is not the most reliable citation for a Wikipedia article - I think that it's not up to me to characterise me, it's up to the people who know me, the people who meet me.
When I say "it's not up to me to characterise me", I don't say that as in it's up to everyone in existence to mould me into something. All I mean is that it's up to the people that come into contact with me to decide who and how I am. I'm still my own person with characteristics and that, I just don't think I can truly be correct about who I am.
And before I end, may I point out something that I find somewhat interesting but others may not? I can? Brillo pads.
Have you noticed that for the entirety of this piece of text, and quite possibly every other thing that I write, I don't describe myself as a man?
I always find pathetic workarounds to tell people that I am male. It's been like that ever since I was introduced to the world of social media, back in the day where MySpace was the dog's doodas and the iPhone was a mere glint in Apple's eye.
The first time I wrote an "about me" section, I wrote something similar to "I have testicles and a penis, which categorises me as a male of my species".
I was fourteen when I had my first social network. And now, nearly seven years later, I still can't call myself a man, even though I'm at that age where I should be comfortable with that name.
I doubt it's because I have not done "manly" things. You know, I've yet to impregnate a woman, I've yet to buy a house and live on my own, I can't sit around with other men and talk about manly stuff like football or peanut butter or whatever men talk about these days, because I just feel rather awkward doing it.
I don't know why, my dearest world, but for me, defining yourself is possibly the hardest thing someone can do. Well, other than realising that you're mortal and will die one day, but you know what I mean.
But for me, even describing my gender is difficult. I don't need to do it in person, since it's obvious that I'm male. But it's those levels of maledom where there's a lot of weight on such a small word.
I don't see myself as a boy, but I'm not yet a woman. Er, I mean, man. Not yet a man. Curse you, Britney Spears.
In other news, I've yet to find a way to build up confidence. If there are tips available, please let me know. As long as it doesn't involve looking at myself in the mirror and telling myself that I'm like a lion and I'll pounce on all opportunities in my way.
I thank ye, World.
More Dear World (and much, much more) from CrazyDistortion
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1 Comment – Post a comment
End0fDarkness
Commented 5 months ago - 6th December 2012 - 17:58pm
When discussing 'identity', I find it useful to keep in my mind the whole 'objective' and 'subjective' thing. Something objective is true and not down to opinion, such as the length of a centimetre. Subjective are naturally the opposite. Things that are down teach person's opinion.
So what are the objective things about a person which aren't up for debate? Gender, age, siblings, family. This are the only identity traits that could not be challenged by a person as they can be proved. So, if looking for an identity, it's recommend starting here.
In my opinion there are other objective traits, but they can not be proved. Things like sexual orientation, likes and dislikes, hygiene standards. These are sometimes open to change more so than the others. These can be challenged but can only you really know if you are telling the truth or not. For example, I enjoy looking at art, but someone could say to me 'you don't like art, you haven't even been to an art gallery'. This is true, I haven't, but II enjoy looking at art on deviantart, Newgrounds and YouTube. Just because I don't conform to their standard of what a person who likes looking at art should do, does not mean that I do not get a sense of interest, pleasure and curiosity from looking at art, even though I can not proof this.
Next are the subjective adjectives, as you mentioned, one is 'funny', others are 'interesting', 'quiet', 'argumentative', 'wise', 'good dresser' or 'attractive'. There is no one true scale in which we can say if someone is funny, we can't pull out our funny-o-meters and take a look. In which case it's all down to opinion. Generally speaking, no opinion on subjective things is greater than anyone elses. I personally consider Dara O'Briain to be funny, but some people hate him? Who is ultimately right? No one. What is right though is that he provokes laughter from me, so to me, he is funny, although he may not be to the other guy.
Other subjective terms are linked to our skills. When does a person who is an absolute beginner at art become an 'artist'? This again, is often down to intepretation. But, with things like this, we have the definition of the word to help us justify ourselves when we want to identitfy ourselves as these labels. For an artist, the definition from Google is '1.A person who produces paintings or drawings as a profession or hobby'. Although some people may disagree that this is not a 'true artist', this definition is objective. The word 'artist' in the English language could be used to discribe anyone who 'produces paintings or drawings as a profession or hobby', even if those drawings are rubbish. 'Being a Man' also applies to this.
People who have their own standards of what being a 'true artist', a 'true Welshman', a 'true football fan' and so on are, are commiting the error in thinking known as 'The No True Scotsman Fallacy', which is described awesomely here:
If I can be frank...it sounds to me as if you are sometimes confused in your thinking, maybe going around in circles or second guessing yourself, like unsure of how to rank yourself as a 'Man' for example. There is an area of study known as 'Critical Thinking' which is key to all debating. Critical thinking teaches us where we are going wrong in our own thoughts as well as where others are going wrong in others. The No True Scotsman fallacy is an example of this. Another is the 'Argument from Authority' fallacy. An example of this would be someone believing the Earth's core is made of cheese because physicist Steven Hawking said so.
I believe that Critical Thinking will help you in terms of thinking what your personality is at the moment.
In terms of confidence, there is a system called Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (don't let the word 'therapy' put you off) which explains that it is not an event or memory that makes us feel how we feel, but the meaning we attach to it. For example, a person may wake up late and miss their lift to work. They can see this in a number of ways which will make them feel differently. They could think 'I'm always late, I'm such a loser' which is likely to make them feel depressed, they could think 'everyone's late at some point, its no big deal', which is likely to make them feel indifferent or they could think 'wow, I'm late, I'll phone up and explain and work harder to day to make up for it', which may make them feel like they accepted their mistake, but are making amends.
I think CBT is the way to go for your low confidence. The book is kind of expensive (around £14) but Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Dummies is fantastic for learning CBT.