Identity

I'll warn you.You might hate this post. You'll probably reject my ideas. Why? Because it'll attack the very core of who you think you are. I don't think I'll convince you of anything. My best hope so far is to awaken your curiosity. 

What is an Identity. Is it a name? A job? Things liked? Music listened? Hobbies? Moral values? Opinions?  If you would have to define yourself, what would you say about you? How can you explain all the choices you made throughout your life? And what does it tell about your identity? If you'd do that, it'll only be a snapshot in time.

I wrote a post about changing according to yourself to become the "someone" you really are by trying to find out what you may have lied to yourself to be complaisant. But it lead me to more questions about my true identity.

My technique was simple at first. It was to create more and more situations where I got to make a decision about who I wanted to be. I thought that if it's something I'd choose, then It'd be me. Instead of letting things go and become me. However, I think I found out that this is nonsense. Oh, don't get me wrong, I still think it's a pretty good way to work things out but it fails at revealing who I am. Because I am not. "I" is such a deceptive word. 

Most of you probably know this famous Descartes quote : "I think, therefore I am". You probably learned this in a philosophy class. If I remember correctly, I couldn't think of anyway to disagree with Descartes until recently. To me, "to be" isn't the result of the "I" making the action of thinking. Descartes was searching for a certitude of his own existence. He couldn't be certain of anything he was seeing, touching, hearing, eating ... you get it. But the only thing that he could be sure of are his thoughts. 

This explanation doesn't get further than that. It was satisfying enough to prove someone exists, but it fails at finding what this "thing" that exists is. This "I am" that does the action of thinking.  It is our own identity and if I have the power to forge it, to change it with influences or choices I'm making throughout my life, then thinking cannot be the action the "I" does to be. Thinking over seed the "I". 

I'm really sorry to point it out but our language is deficient in providing me a way to write this sentence without using the "I" word. But "I" is the ideas I create to be an "I". In other words, "I think, therefore I am" is incomplete to me. It should be "I am thoughts, therefore "I" exist". I don't want to make it look sloppy but unfortunately it is. That's because our concept of "I" is in contradiction with what I'm saying. 

For now on, I can't be anything else but thoughts. I'm not a name? A job? Things I like? Music I listen? My hobbies? My moral values? My opinions? I'm only the idea I have to be all these characteristics and my ideas have the power to change them all. 

Conclusion, only my thoughts exist and "I" is the representation of them.

I'm too sexy

Dear readers,

I'd like to show you a "not so stupid" stupid thing I did. I went to this karaoke bar I usually go to hang out with some friends. I never sang. That was until last week-end. Listen to the video. It's a good laugh as I probably was the least sexy man in the place. You can hear people cheering for the big man and not for the performance. It's pretty cool. I wasn't taking myself seriously.

Don't worry I'm not showing this to you only for the fun of it. I intend to explain how I felt before and after. If you remember a previous post called "Fears" ( if you don't I invite you to read it ), you probably figure where I'm going with this post.

Before 

I was playing pool with a friend and I was playing bad. I mean, we played like 6-7 games and I lost them all without being close to win one. For the record, my friend wasn't playing like he was a world champion. I was simply disgusted with the way I played. 

After being humiliated at the pool table I wanted to do something completely unexpected. I went to give to the DJ a piece of paper on which I wrote my name and the song : I'm too sexy. After all, my humiliation wasn't that bad. Let's get it worst I thought. As the waiting for my turn got longer and longer I began to feel nervous, anxious, even impatient. I'd say it's pretty normal to feel like that. 

But I took a moment and I stopped to ask myself why I'm feeling this way. So I started to ask myself questions. What are the consequences? What worst can happen? What do I fear? Every answer I came up with can be found on this blog. It was absurd to apprehend the moment I'd be in front of a crown making goofy moves. There was no consequences to justify feeling nervous about it. So it made me more calm and more focused on what I was about to do. I think the result speaks for itself.

After

Right after, I felt a rush of ...  a rush of ... I can't find words to describe it. It was something. People having fun, laughing, shaking my hand in admiration for the balls it took me to amuse the crowd at the expense of my dignity. At this exact moment I knew I was right about most fears being absurds. That I wasn't all talks no walks. I was proud of myself.

Later on, we returned to the pool table. This time, I wasn't the bad player I was early on. I was awesome. I played like I never did before. I was like a world champion. I won 5 in a row in a decisive manner.  It's all about how I felt.

Conclusion

I think this experience is some kind of a rebirth. I can use it to face every situation where fears are absurds to become more fearless and I hope it gives my blog credibility.