Been thinking about self lately, what it means to be
yourself, that collection of behaviors and traits, of reactions and sensations,
of memories and reference points, the avenues carved out and solidified… but
how solidified how concrete are they?
Each day I wake up, usually irritated
that I can’t sleep in later, but also frustrated with myself that I have lost
half the day. I get out of bed slowly, usually I check every single one of my
social media accounts and watch a handful of youtube videos. I eat a quick bite
and then jump into the shower. After I shower, it’s a rush to get out the door.
The faster I get coffee the better, sometimes I eat lunch beforehand, sometimes
I combine the two. Then I take a walk (if it’s not raining). Calhoun or Isles,
depending on how much time I have left. Then I settle at a coffee shop and
start to write or edit. After about 4 hours I need to move again, I get dinner
or see a friend, then I go home and watch youtube or Netflix or occasionally read.
Every once in a while, I can get myself to draw, lift some weights or do a bit
more writing, but usually I just zone into a series of something and maybe
check Instagram or tinder once or twice. Every night when I try to go to sleep my mind
is full of ideas-usually something that repeats over and over and keeps me up
till the sun comes up, then I tell myself to get up early so that I can do
something the next day that is different, capitalize on the time a bit more,
but I ignore each alarm and repeat.
When
I am talking to people, I often run out of things to say. I’ve been aware of
this for years now, and I am also well-aware that it isn’t that I don’t have
opinions or am not caught up on various trends or the news, but I get bored
with it, and the things I am really investing my time and energy into –are not
things people are on the same page with. How many adults do you know who sleep
in, go for a walk, drink coffee and play on their computer all day? Part of it
is the privilege –I am aware that I have chosen this, I am aware that I am
getting a sort of treat other people don’t have the opportunity for. Part of it
is my neuroticism and weird interests and ideas. I want to explore topics that
no one cares about, thought experiments, observations on life, other people
have concrete stories, things that happened to them –to consider or complain
about. My big complaint in a day would
be… I have a headache from waking up too late.
I
still have difficulty relating to people, part of it is these concrete day to
day things, and part of it navigating the social swirl, what is appropriate?
What do people need/want to hear? Where do my interests align with theirs and
am I too set in my ways?
My
ways… Sometimes when I read profiles on okcupid, I get excited and then start
finding all the little things that would be an issue, one thing turns into
another turns into another, and suddenly I am not excited, but disappointed –and
usually I blame myself.
I
was talking to my Mom yesterday about “playing the game” and she remarked that
for her it was easy to see the game and just get by, the sort of –do enough to
pass the class thing, but I have never really operated that way with anything I
thought was important. I’ve failed classes on the principle that I hadn’t
learned the material so I didn’t deserve to pass. Even this last year, on two
different occasions I purposely got an answer wrong because I wanted to contest
the question –and I didn’t want them to say “Well you got it right, so it doesn’t
matter.” It mattered so I sacrificed. My Mother usually gives the example of
the advice I refused to take when I first graduated from college –she said I
should cut my hair and take out my piercings and go find a nice suburban school
so that I would have a steady income, but when I got a job at an alternative
school that was a better fit, she realized it was a way better decision. She
sees this side of me now as I seem unable or unwilling to settle into a
traditional track in social work. Maybe it is privilege, maybe it is who I am. Still,
it makes it difficult to operate in the world.
But
there are a lot of things about myself and the world that I don’t feel capable
of fighting, and one of the reasons I am picky about friends and partners is
that I want to be with someone who adds capacity to do so, I want help to be a
better me, to further my interests, to push me to excel in the areas I care
about, and have the follow through to change systems or behaviors I don’t like.
But
who is me? Am I just this set of ways or is there something else? In psychology,
you read about these horror stories in which a person has a stroke or gets
brain damage and wakes up a different person. On the lighter side of the same
equation, a person gets their hormone imbalance fixed, gets on a good
antidepressant or solves their sleep apnea problem and suddenly they become the
best version of themselves, the one no one has seen in years because they were
buried under a blanket –and yet they were convinced that was who they had
become, and everyone around them thought so too.
I
see a lot of my friends and ex-lovers and recognize that they have become
people I didn’t assume they would become, for better or worse, they found a way
of being that wasn’t who they were (or who I thought they were) at the time. Others
have turned into exactly the person they seemed to be, and you could argue they
are stuck in their deep solidified grooves –and even if that is for the better,
is that right?
And,
isn’t it also the case, that a person can reinforce the same pattern for better
and worse? For instance, the high achiever becomes more competitive, and
productive but also more jealous, defensive and envious –-the two walls of the
trench getting carved deeper.
But
of course, the self is also an illusion, just as a behavior can have two sides,
so too can an experience, so can a personality… My Dad’s dog jumps on me and I
recoil in anxiety because I’m already nervous, because I am already agitated. I
knee the dog or pay it no mind, because “I don’t like dogs.” OR I am in a good
mood, or I am absent minded and the dog comes up and a I pet it without
thinking because it is there, and the dog likes me, and I go wash my hands and
realize it wasn’t that bad even though I don’t NORMALLY like dogs.
I
don’t care about sports, but my friends are playing a pick-up game, so I join
in. They want to go to the Twins game while they are in town and I go and enjoy
myself. They want to go to a bar, and I love them so I don’t mind the noise or
the awkwardness, and they don’t either. These contextual things suddenly change
the whole dynamic and I become a different person based on them.
Sometimes
I wonder, if I could just BE a different person. If I could enjoy the things
that I don’t regularly enjoy now, or have completely different interests, or be
able to follow through on the things that are difficult for me to follow
through on now. Could I wake up tomorrow and decide I am a musician. Not a
person who had instruments and learns a song every other year only to forget
it, but someone who plays, who loves to play, regardless of whether it means
anything. Could I be an athlete? Or a yoga teacher? Could I be someone who
likes salads? Who drives out of town every weekend to go hiking, because I
enjoy it. And if not the overnight change, how long would I have to do it, in
order to make it me? Mike the guy who goes cross country skiing? Mike the guy
who does taxidermy. Mike the guy who meets new people, and doesn’t seek out the
differences, and play a helping role, but enjoys their company regardless.
In
most Western faiths, there is this belief that with God’s help a person can change,
they can become someone different than who they used to be –a coming to god
moment, true submission etc. In most Eastern faiths, there is this idea that
you are not necessarily you, just playing the role, and the true you is hidden
somewhere else. This illusion is a good one, you tell yourself you don’t like
dogs, and beer and salad, you think it so much that it becomes true, but
tomorrow you could, and yesterday you could.
Linear
thinking makes me believe that these choices I am making now, to deepen the
same pathways, the repetition of my behaviors and thoughts, that will be me.
Who I am now, is who I will become, a more rich version of that in the most
positive light, more stubborn in the negative. I know logically that this is a half-truth.
Sometimes
I deviate from my track, try a new slightly different version of the same, test
the boundaries. Sometimes I think the adjustment will lead me down a new path…
usually it doesn’t. But maybe tomorrow?
