Identity

So I wrote this as part of my intercultural communications class last summer before I was out to myself. It is interesting to see my writing at that time.

Identities

This past week in class, immediately following the “Wall to Wall” exercise, I was discussing the activity, and the mentalities of people in different situations. It all came down to an issue in identity. I was intrigued at the choices provided by people in relation to others who they had clumped with throughout the activity. This got me thinking about the issue of Identity, and what it really is. Einstein once said “Reality is merely an illusion, although a very persistent one.” I believe this quote works wonders with my mind if I substitute the word reality with identity. Identity is merely an illusion, although a persistent one. Each person has a different identity at the ready for any whatever situation, because their circles of friendship and society rarely mix. So each person chooses the identity the will take with them when dealing with different groups of people. At school, I try to add input frequently so that I will be noticed, for in my mind it is much better to be noticed than to sit through a whole class without mentioning anything, or providing anything useful to the forum of students. At work, I try to be a genial friend to all due to my feelings of not fitting in and wanting to assert myself with other people. I know that most human interactions I have at my work are fabrications and not truly my identity. At my fencing club, is probably where I had the fewest fabrications of myself, but I even there I still attempt to falsify friendship. At home, I try to become the person my parentals want me to be, but I am just faking it. What is the real me, I don’t know. I think that I might be so fragmented between my own “Identities” that I have a variant of Schizophrenia where I don’t have hallucinations or misconceptions of reality, but where I have a literal “split mind.” My mind has become split between the identities I apply. While writing this I remembered this quote from some obscure part of my brain, “We are not the masks we wear, but if we don them, do we not become them?” And I also remembered a quote by CS Lewis that states, “All mortals tend to turn into the thing they are pretending to be.” These quotes seem to blend well with my idea of my identity because if I have so many identities that I am wearing like masks, will I not turn into those identities. Whether or not that is a good thing I intend to find out, but at the same time it makes you wonder if then I would become a schizophrenic. When I examine myself to find my true identity, I often am scared to see what it is.