Who am I?
The question of whether I am a man or a woman confounds me; are there only two possible standards? Must I cathegorize myself in one of these? Does who I love and don't love make a difference, do I have to put these labels on myself in order to come to peace with myself? In the final choice, I have simply pointed to my born body to avoid making a decision. Nature made me woman. But does that mean I am a woman? Would changing my body make me a man, any more than I am woman now?
Am I the sum of my actions? The total of my projects? The thoughts in my head? Am I who I think I am, or who you think I am, or is there a universal constant somewhere? Identity has as many variations as there are humans. I know who I am, I can feel the essence of my creature, but does that really make a difference? For the rest of me, thoughts, actions, body, appearance, behavior, clothes, the color of my eyes, it must all contribute to who I am, right? Having a female body doesn't make me a woman, any more than being able to write makes me a writer. But does being a woman mean I have a female body, and being a writer mean I can write? That man can be born in the "wrong" body seems the be generally acnowledged through transexuals. That there are wonderfun writers out there who never got the education to put it to use, I have no doubt. Are these the only options? Is there only "right" and "wrong"? Is this what being a "human" is about? What if I don't want either?
Does this mean every single point of my character is individual and isolated? No man is an island. Cause and effect. They cannot be unconnected and unaffected. This means that being a woman in a female body makes me different than being woman in a male body. This means every single point of my character stands in delicate balance to every other; that variations are endless, that analysis is impossible. Everything about everyone is a sliding scale with a million points of reference and genres and cathegories are useless and despicable.
Following all this comes the knowledge that: knowing what I am will change who I am.
Therefore: Tell me who I am.
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8 comments:
This is something I have always been wondering about, and I could write page upon page about who you are, and probably several books about who I am.
But, as V points out, "who is but the form following the function of what", and "what" is the categories you talk about. What am I - Man, woman, hamster? I am getting increasingly convinced that identity stems from knowing a) What we are like and b) What we are not like. So, for example, I am like you in a lot of ways - we both write, for instance. You write more and better than I - there is a difference.
Hence the categories "men" and "women" - they are very obvious, very simply ways of saying "I am like you" or "I am not like you". So I suppose that is all I can tell you about who you are - in a lot of ways, you are me, and in many ways, you are not. Does that make sense? "Me" is after all, the only point of reference I have.
She is Edmond Dantés... and she is my father. And my mother... my brother... my friend. She is you... and me. She is all of us.
You are most definitely a woman
That was a conclusive answer, at least.
Can I vote "awesome"? Is that a category?
I think "awesome" is a good category. It would make me the same category as you, and that can't be wrong.
Aw, dawn. You compliment-disarmed me.
Phear my skillzorz! ^^
Question for Phaze: Why?
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