Intro
Woo! Back at it again with another rant so soon! I’m gonna see if I can make up for the lack of news reaction yesterday with today. In the end we’ll just have to see! In any case, the rant started with my question, “what does your ego/identity revolve around?” A pal of mine gave his answer and then asked me the question in return. This is what I had to say:
The Rant Part I
It’s interesting, I don’t know if it’s also the case for Eastern culture, but I’m a bit aware of Western culture having some interesting naming conventions. For instance, their surnames/last names/family names would be their professions like:
Bowmen (literally an archer I guess)
Smith (blacksmith/tinsmith etc.)
Fletcher (arrow maker)
Other than that there’s also those names that are called “patronyms” where you’re basically named after an earlier ancestor. Stuff like:
Johnson (Son of John)
Jameson (Son of James)
Fernandez (Son of Fernando)
Rodriguez (Son of Rodrigo)
Petrov (Of Peter)
Grigorovich (Son of Grigory)
I bring up names since I feel as if they’ve always played somewhat of a major role in a person’s identity. It’s how people refer to you after all. So it’s interesting how people decided, “hey, people are going to refer to me as the son/daughter of one of my ancestors.”
Or “hey, people are going to refer to me by my profession, by what I do for a living.”
The Rant Part II
And it makes sense I guess, since even nowadays, there are a lot of people still under the influence of our Protestant work ethic. Work defines You, it gives you a sense of purpose/meaning. Work gives you a sense of fulfillment.
So for some or a lot of people, I guess their self-esteem/sense of pride strongly correlates with their socioeconomic position in life, which tends to be directly tied in with what you do for a living, your profession. People without a profession are looked down upon and ostracized: NEETs, Losers, Homeless, are a few categories I can think of.
The problem also tends to be that people become quite disillusioned with work as well. They expect “gainful employment” to fill them with pride and happiness and joy and all that stuff and slowly become resentful and aggravated that it oftentimes isn’t really the case. Akin to how some people become resentful that their partners don’t make them happy 24/7.
So now we get to the part where people don’t feel like attaching their sense of self/identity to something external, they probably start to think more along their internal world. “my experiences, my emotions, my reactions, my sentiments, my memories, my perspectives” etc. All internal. No one thing takes prominence, it’s all of it together that is prominent, “My inner universe” “My inner machinations”
So now people revolve their identity/sense of self around who they perceive/idealize themselves to be. And it gives people a feeling of confidence/strength/control, because no matter how crazy the world gets, “we’ll always be ourselves, right?” So our self-esteem now revolves around how good we feel about ourselves and what we like about ourselves. It’s definitely pretty concrete and stable.
The Rant Part III
Now, there’s also a special kind of identity, it’s actually one of my favorite identities.
I don’t know the proper/official term for it, but I merely call it, “the Identity-less Identity.”
It’s where you simply no longer worry about having an identity, having a place, having a function, having a purpose, having a meaning.
Your identity now revolves around the fact that you no longer worry about such aspects.
I think this is one of the closest ways you can get to “simply being/simply existing/simply living.”
“I just am.”
No logic or reasoning behind it required.
No need for endless justifications & extrapolations.
Definitely no house of cards to slowly build up and maintain.
Comfortable with the understanding that even if we don’t understand, it’s fine.
The Rant Final Part
Now for me personally…
I don’t know what my ego revolves around if it even revolves around anything at all.
I think “the identity-less identity” is probably where I best fit if I had to choose.
But meh, I guess it’s just understanding that I am what I am even if don’t understand who I am.
Wish I could say that I’ve learned a lot and gained a lot of wisdom.
But in the end I only know that I understand nothing after all.
There’s a strange satisfaction/peace of mind that comes with that, hmm.
My Identity revolves around Nothing/Everything I suppose, to sum that all up.
I attach myself to Existence.
Existence is my ultimate benefactor after all. I would not be here chatting with you guys and exploring the depths of our perception had it not been for our primogenitor, Existence.
Damn… I just looped back all the way to the start didn’t I?
Here I am making fun of people for being named after their ancestors.
But Existence is pretty much just the ultimate/original ancestor.
Outro
In any case that’s all that I have to say on the subject for now. I look forward to writing another post for you guys again! That’s all for now though.
Regards From Your Fellow Wonderer,
