‘Identity’ is a narrativization of life,
a story that satisfies us about who we are
Lisa Tickner
Michael Carson
Who am I?
I posit here that I am nothing more than a reflection of the world, a mirror.
I cannot jump out of my skin and ‘see’ myself as others see me. I do not inherently know what I represent, what I mean, my identity. So instead, I look for myself in others, in their actions, their beliefs, their conventions. I see myself in abstract artworks, in graffiti I pass on the streets, in random acts of kindness, in the bicyclist going downhill with a smile on her face. I find that these examples resemble my past actions, my pleasures, myself. The understanding of my own contours are shaped by others- where they end, and where I begin.
I construct my identity with conventions that already exist and already carry meaning. I associate with some words, some images, some people, but not with others. I know I am not aggressive because I wouldn’t have yelled at a store clerk about a refund for fifteen minutes; I know I am not a cynic because I am still afraid of the dark. Of course, “aggression” and “cynicism” are loaded with meanings that are shaped by every person who has ever used those words; I thus have no perception of my identity apart from the social codes that I use to represent it. How I describe myself is always already marked by culture. Identity cannot be pure. It is filtered through representations.
This is discomforting because it says the most sacred thing to us- our own sense of self- is contingent, full of uncertainty. It is not whole but comprised of fragments of everything else. The best we can do is put these fragments together, like a puzzle, to form a decipherable image. We turn our lives into a narrative that has a beginning, a middle, and an end, like the characters we read of in books or see in film. After all, those stories have an order, are self-contained, whereas we are not.
The comforting thought, then, lies in the fact that through representation, through conversation, we become both creators and spectators of ourselves. We have the power to see and therefore improve upon our lives. With this understanding, we become agents of progress.
