who am I (an essay)
this is my little essay on the question of identity
am I what I did or am I what happened to me?
what do I choose as representation of myself?
a set of these questions is the most painful thing I have ever got myself through but the problem with it is that you can answer all of those many times and each time a new answer will come
I was so relieved when they stopped bothering me for a quick moment, when everything felt right. but then things started unfolding that made me change my place of living and the questions got raised again
now in a new form I started thinking how to mantain a strong sense of self without having such things as stable home, stable community or even stable rigid personality?
what is that and how to explain and live it if you don't have that?
and when the question on who you are becomes something that can decide your future?
is identity worth the wars that we have for it?
speaking about the national identity becomes really hard because there is a part to it that you cannot choose yourself. but there is also a part of it that we choose. and it makes it look much more like something gender offers us.
But maybe identity and process of identifying with something is not the only solution to our life on this planet, maybe there is a better approach that could include all the different people with their different experiences without erasing them.
one of the key topics that I find when researching myself is the topic of displacement, relocation, movement.
if I could show the displacement with my body it would be something very chaotic, I would want to portray a plastic bag that is thrown around by wind.
But at the same time it brings me to think about the fact I have a very special relationship with my body's movements. In my family because of the religion it was permitted to dance. So the first time I fully allowed myself dancing was not so long ago. And it bringed so much joy and freedom to my life. That joy was only comparable to what I felt when I first had sex.
So in a way when I try to find a new perspective on displacement I start to think about dancing. Yes, there are bigger forces that violently affect my position in space, but I can still dance through that, dance around that, I can interact with it in a way. It doesn't have to be boring and gutless movement, it can be still exciting even though it's against my will and resticted.
so yes, body movements - dancing or having sex are closely related in my worldview with the process of displacement. it's like finding new depth of freedom inside constrained circumstances
movement for me is also closely related with the concept of life. Dead do not move, if I am able to move, it means I am alive. Even if those movements are limited in a certain way.
But Maybe it was wrong in the first place to think about a question of who am I or who are we, because once you asked that question you have the need for an identity. It arises from that and whenever you have people who are concentrated on figuring it out they will always be separated in different groups which will never be at peace with each other. am I wrong?
so instead of that, maybe in order to accept our differences we just need to demolish the idea of an identity as a concept and as a construct. But how does this process look like, is it possible? How does post identity world look like? What are the things that people in post-identity world are excited about?
but I am willing to work towards the world where we are less concentrated on the question of 'who am I?' In my opinion it’s less important than questions: how do I feel, what do I like, what do I want. and those questions allow dialogue, movement, change cooperation.
Those are the questions I suggest everyone to ask themselves instead of 'who am I'!
