When walking through my city I often notice people with a very outspoken personality: a piercing that just looks downright painful, a shabby ‘vintage’ leather jacket or a pants too wide in order to walk comfortably.
The issue I have with the outspoken ‘look this is who I am’ identity is that it’s too external. When your identity is based around external things e.g. your vintage leather jacket, then your self-image starts to revolve around the way others view you, instead of the manner in which you view yourself.
You see this often on social media, for example: ‘Medical Doctor aesthetic’, a collection of pictures where you see cute doctor jackets and a nicely photographed hospital room. Again the same problem arises, people not wanting to become a doctor because of the actual substance, but because it looks cute(which in reality it doesn’t, trust me). After watching this you can easily see yourself now as the guy or girl in this doctors suit saving people’s life with a surgery, a surgery which you manage to perform in almost artistic fashion, a surgery so aesthetically sensitive that you didn’t even see blood.
However, there are also people who are intrinsically motivated, people who actually want to know how the nervous system works. These people become doctors too and for them the doctors jacket is just a byproduct of them pursuing their interests and passion.
It seems that (some) people, especially in a formative are obsessed with being perceived in a certain way instead of being a certain way. They place who they are outside of themselves and as a result their identity has no internal substance, when you look behind the flashy jacket, it’s hollow.
This to me looks very unstable, as it’s not natural nor sustainable. This desire to be perceived a certain way, is, eventually, just an attempt at being respected, acknowledged or loved. This is a valid desire, but it should be fulfilled another way, by starting to love yourself unconditionally or by being openly worthless to others and see what happens.
You need to have this sense that you are okay, that you are fine, you need to accept yourself. Funny enough it is then, when you start to change.
When your energy no longer goes to how people see you, you can finally pay more attention to what’s happening within you. It is as simple as finding out what you want to do with your time, maybe this time, you start to actually wonder about the nervous system. You start asking yourself how it actually works and as a result you buy some books regarding the subject.
As time goes on and your hunger to knowledge begins to grow you decide to go to medical school, perhaps you could become a neurologist after. A few years later you’ve become a doctor, though there is not much use in calling yourself that, you just followed your passion, the title is just a byproduct.
This is what I want to drive home, a life build around following yourself can be so rich, it can be full of substance, where every aspect is embedded with meaning! In contrast to the artificial identity we’ve just discussed where you’re not really embodying yourself, but rather holding up an act of who you are.
It is only when you let go of what others think of you(and not in a loud way) when you can start to become the person you are; someone who is a product of themselves instead of their environment, an individual.
Well I have sum this up many of us are looking for a place to land and we only have a gallon of fuel left in the jet engine.... What happens we will crash land somewhere by just falling out of the sky.
Greatly written article! There is undeniably a society where performing is a common method of seeking validation, so i always like to think, using the anecdote from your article: Don’t wear the jacket because you want an identity, wear the jacket because it IS your identity. (Your writing style and structuring of your essays are most definitely improving, keep rocking!^^)