Who Am I?
Shooting for big things on Livejournal today... we'll see how I do. The goal is to resolve my quarter-life existential crisis. We'll see how THAT goes.
So I've had a weird phenomenon happen to me over the past couple of days. I was very low on sleep last week, because I had a big video editing project I was working on and I was staying up far past midnight to work on it, due to excitement (it was for a group that's making a headband to read your brainwaves... pretty crazy stuff). Two days ago, the lack of sleep seemed to catch up to me. I got to bed around midnight, and woke up from an extremely deep sleep around 5 in the morning. When I woke up, I immediately went to the bathroom. When I was washing my hands, I just had this sudden jerk and asked myself "why am I doing this?" I'm sure you've had those moments, where you're just on autopilot and not even thinking about what you're doing. I was on complete autopilot... like I was a machine, and going expressly by instinct. As I asked myself what I was doing, I started asking myself even weirder questions... how do I know I'm me? The sleep I was in was so deep, I was racking my brain for what my last memories were. Then I looked and saw I was wearing my neon green Sun Drop t-shirt and pajama pants, and started going over stuff I did the night before, and what I was planning on doing in the upcoming day. Everything made sense, I was waking up. So then I went back to sleep.
It then happened to me a couple of times today. I was in class, and I had to figure out why I was in class. I was walking on the street and I tried to figure out why. It gave me a bit of a headache thinking about it... for some reason my memory just didn't seem as tangible, didn't seem as real. And then, those memories were all I had to make me who I am. What if they weren't real, or I made them up? What if some dreams slipped into my memories, and my memories into my dreams? What if I was imagining reality? The more I answered the more questions I asked, and I couldn't help but feel very shifty as I kept walking down the street.
Which brings me to the big question. If I take my memories away (which I guess is impossible because my memories or lack thereof make me who I am, but anyway...), who am I? What is it that makes me me? Do I have a personality? What is that personality? Is that personality anything other than experience? Am I nothing more than an amalgamation (that's a really cool word but probably not right, I was looking for a fancy word that means "combination") of a bunch of different experiences that happened at certain times? Am I studious because my mom ingrained studying in me when I was really young, or am I studious because I intrinsically wanna know stuff?
So who am I. I used to associate myself with so many adjectives... I'm athletic! I'm smart! I'm creative! But do those really work? Are those key to who I am?
To me, my most important trait has to fall somewhere in the "creative" spectrum. That seems to be the key to my identity... I constantly feel a need to create, to be working on something. I am happiest when I've just successfully finished something, like editing a video or even writing a livejournal. I feel accomplished, and for me, that's happiness. Idle time drives me nutty, which is a Catch-22 because I'm always trying to secure myself some free time. I anally schedule my day to try to boost my efficiency, just to try to get myself some free time. And then when I get it, I'm not happy. I struggle to watch ten minutes of a sporting event, including ones I enjoy, without doing something else that I deem productive.
So I'm a creator I guess, or an artist. That's a word I've never thrown on myself before, artist. I can't draw for the life of me, after all. Maybe we'll stick with creator. What's most interesting about this trait is that it's a trait I (believe) I possess, and it's also a trait I like about myself. So creative really seems to stand at the core of who I am.
Now things get trickier. Do I have values? What are my values? I joked with my roommate at dinner tonight that I don't believe in anything. That is of course not true. My issue, though, seems to be that when I try to value things I tend to depend on my logic. But then, I'm also an emotionally-driven person, and I'd say the last thing I am is cold. So what on earth happens when you put all that together? A logical emotional person? I'm pretty empathetic, I think, considering my penchant for tearing up a little at any sentimental movie moment. I also can't say no to anybody, which I'm really starting to dislike. I sacrifice my own values for others, often, which makes me wonder how strong the values really are in the first place. It's not that I don't believe in anything... it's that I always say "this value isn't worth standing up for in this struggle, it's no big deal." Of course, I suppose having small values isn't really much better.
On great moral issues, I've always said that I can't pick a side until I'm in that actual situation. That I wouldn't be able to determine my stance on abortion unless I actually impregnated a girl. That I'd have to have a deaf child to know what I'd do with cochlear implants. However, a close friend told me the flaw in my thinking there, when saying that thinking about ethical scenarios is important because if we can figure out the right answer when we're detached from the situation, then we'll pick the right one if and when we're actually in it. That resonated with me quite a bit... and I then proceeded to say I would choose to kill a person instead of five if a runaway trolley was going at them all, and then get debated for four hours before choosing differently (just Google "trolley problem" if that didn't make sense).
But anyway, I SHOULD figure out my stances on stuff in advance. And yet I have trouble feeling passionate enough about them. What's my take on drugs? War? Civil disobedience? Why do I follow rules? Why do I want to make money? Why are my ambitions what they are?
I'm trying so hard to figure out what I want my career to be (with the full knowledge that I can change at any moment). Saw a cute little diagram online of what a dream job is... the intersection of "what you love" with "what you're good at" with "what someone will pay you to do." My issue is I'm good at a whole lot of stuff (maybe one of my qualities is vanity...) and I love a whole lot of stuff. Like math for example. I got a freaking 800 on the Math SAT. And it's fun for me. Love math! Bet I could be paid a lot to do it too. But I feel I'd be stifling the creative side. Then there's video production... love video production! And I'm pretty good at it! But if I were to do that I feel like I wouldn't be helping people... and then I'll feel guilty. Now I'm looking at neuroscience which will help people, but again, doesn't play to the creative side.
Sooooo... this really isn't helping me figure out who I am at all, it's just making me ask more questions. I guess there's one thing though... are all parts of my personality changeable? If I want to be nicer, can't I just make a conscious decision to be... nicer? If I want to be less judgmental, isn't there a process I can take to try to point out when I'm judgmental and reverse it? I guess the key is that I can if I genuinely want to... I can't just be cool 'cause I want to be. There has to be a genuine desire for change. But if I have that genuine desire... well then, it should be possible, right? If I want to be more benevolent, can't I just start doing a few actions consciously, making little steps, and then it'll slowly build into my personality? Or does there have to be an internal change to match the external one... and maybe the internal can never be changed. So if I was doing the more benevolent stuff it wouldn't work, 'cause internally nothing would be different.
I think I've written more questions than answers, which I guess is partially the point. Right?
So I've had a weird phenomenon happen to me over the past couple of days. I was very low on sleep last week, because I had a big video editing project I was working on and I was staying up far past midnight to work on it, due to excitement (it was for a group that's making a headband to read your brainwaves... pretty crazy stuff). Two days ago, the lack of sleep seemed to catch up to me. I got to bed around midnight, and woke up from an extremely deep sleep around 5 in the morning. When I woke up, I immediately went to the bathroom. When I was washing my hands, I just had this sudden jerk and asked myself "why am I doing this?" I'm sure you've had those moments, where you're just on autopilot and not even thinking about what you're doing. I was on complete autopilot... like I was a machine, and going expressly by instinct. As I asked myself what I was doing, I started asking myself even weirder questions... how do I know I'm me? The sleep I was in was so deep, I was racking my brain for what my last memories were. Then I looked and saw I was wearing my neon green Sun Drop t-shirt and pajama pants, and started going over stuff I did the night before, and what I was planning on doing in the upcoming day. Everything made sense, I was waking up. So then I went back to sleep.
It then happened to me a couple of times today. I was in class, and I had to figure out why I was in class. I was walking on the street and I tried to figure out why. It gave me a bit of a headache thinking about it... for some reason my memory just didn't seem as tangible, didn't seem as real. And then, those memories were all I had to make me who I am. What if they weren't real, or I made them up? What if some dreams slipped into my memories, and my memories into my dreams? What if I was imagining reality? The more I answered the more questions I asked, and I couldn't help but feel very shifty as I kept walking down the street.
Which brings me to the big question. If I take my memories away (which I guess is impossible because my memories or lack thereof make me who I am, but anyway...), who am I? What is it that makes me me? Do I have a personality? What is that personality? Is that personality anything other than experience? Am I nothing more than an amalgamation (that's a really cool word but probably not right, I was looking for a fancy word that means "combination") of a bunch of different experiences that happened at certain times? Am I studious because my mom ingrained studying in me when I was really young, or am I studious because I intrinsically wanna know stuff?
So who am I. I used to associate myself with so many adjectives... I'm athletic! I'm smart! I'm creative! But do those really work? Are those key to who I am?
To me, my most important trait has to fall somewhere in the "creative" spectrum. That seems to be the key to my identity... I constantly feel a need to create, to be working on something. I am happiest when I've just successfully finished something, like editing a video or even writing a livejournal. I feel accomplished, and for me, that's happiness. Idle time drives me nutty, which is a Catch-22 because I'm always trying to secure myself some free time. I anally schedule my day to try to boost my efficiency, just to try to get myself some free time. And then when I get it, I'm not happy. I struggle to watch ten minutes of a sporting event, including ones I enjoy, without doing something else that I deem productive.
So I'm a creator I guess, or an artist. That's a word I've never thrown on myself before, artist. I can't draw for the life of me, after all. Maybe we'll stick with creator. What's most interesting about this trait is that it's a trait I (believe) I possess, and it's also a trait I like about myself. So creative really seems to stand at the core of who I am.
Now things get trickier. Do I have values? What are my values? I joked with my roommate at dinner tonight that I don't believe in anything. That is of course not true. My issue, though, seems to be that when I try to value things I tend to depend on my logic. But then, I'm also an emotionally-driven person, and I'd say the last thing I am is cold. So what on earth happens when you put all that together? A logical emotional person? I'm pretty empathetic, I think, considering my penchant for tearing up a little at any sentimental movie moment. I also can't say no to anybody, which I'm really starting to dislike. I sacrifice my own values for others, often, which makes me wonder how strong the values really are in the first place. It's not that I don't believe in anything... it's that I always say "this value isn't worth standing up for in this struggle, it's no big deal." Of course, I suppose having small values isn't really much better.
On great moral issues, I've always said that I can't pick a side until I'm in that actual situation. That I wouldn't be able to determine my stance on abortion unless I actually impregnated a girl. That I'd have to have a deaf child to know what I'd do with cochlear implants. However, a close friend told me the flaw in my thinking there, when saying that thinking about ethical scenarios is important because if we can figure out the right answer when we're detached from the situation, then we'll pick the right one if and when we're actually in it. That resonated with me quite a bit... and I then proceeded to say I would choose to kill a person instead of five if a runaway trolley was going at them all, and then get debated for four hours before choosing differently (just Google "trolley problem" if that didn't make sense).
But anyway, I SHOULD figure out my stances on stuff in advance. And yet I have trouble feeling passionate enough about them. What's my take on drugs? War? Civil disobedience? Why do I follow rules? Why do I want to make money? Why are my ambitions what they are?
I'm trying so hard to figure out what I want my career to be (with the full knowledge that I can change at any moment). Saw a cute little diagram online of what a dream job is... the intersection of "what you love" with "what you're good at" with "what someone will pay you to do." My issue is I'm good at a whole lot of stuff (maybe one of my qualities is vanity...) and I love a whole lot of stuff. Like math for example. I got a freaking 800 on the Math SAT. And it's fun for me. Love math! Bet I could be paid a lot to do it too. But I feel I'd be stifling the creative side. Then there's video production... love video production! And I'm pretty good at it! But if I were to do that I feel like I wouldn't be helping people... and then I'll feel guilty. Now I'm looking at neuroscience which will help people, but again, doesn't play to the creative side.
Sooooo... this really isn't helping me figure out who I am at all, it's just making me ask more questions. I guess there's one thing though... are all parts of my personality changeable? If I want to be nicer, can't I just make a conscious decision to be... nicer? If I want to be less judgmental, isn't there a process I can take to try to point out when I'm judgmental and reverse it? I guess the key is that I can if I genuinely want to... I can't just be cool 'cause I want to be. There has to be a genuine desire for change. But if I have that genuine desire... well then, it should be possible, right? If I want to be more benevolent, can't I just start doing a few actions consciously, making little steps, and then it'll slowly build into my personality? Or does there have to be an internal change to match the external one... and maybe the internal can never be changed. So if I was doing the more benevolent stuff it wouldn't work, 'cause internally nothing would be different.
I think I've written more questions than answers, which I guess is partially the point. Right?