50 Shades of Identity Crisis

I can’t be a snow flake - snow is white and my identity covers most of the colour wheel. This makes me a wonderful butterfly of diversity and understanding… No, it makes me confused, very confused, very confused^x50,. 

I can’t embrace all of the colours because their values are in conflict. I can’t reject all of them because then that leaves me with nothing. I could take the existentialist view and say, I’m first and foremost a thing at least in my own perception. This then leaves me wondering, how to connect to my perceived surroundings and what’s the point if they only exist in my mind. Well, I use my ‘physical’ body to move around and communicate and what’s the point? There isn’t one but why does the lack of a purpose matter if everything is real only to me, because I want to and I find it satisfying is enough. Now this is where the problems start. If I make the rules for myself then I can only be limited by my own internal limitations, which explains why there are lots of investment bankers walking free - after all, nobody is going to jail themselves. Of course, not everyone is detected breaking laws so perhaps I’ve/they’ve not got the same subconscious’s internal limitations as those who put themselves in prison.

The flip side of this is that, our ‘entity’ is our core with our identity encapsulating it. We are changeable and these experiences stay with us and change us. This is sort of sensible since we know if we have a bad experience, unless we are intent on repeating it we approach a similar situation differently the next time we come across it. These changes and bits of knowledge make up our identity. However, what happens when we approach a familiar problem with two or more tools to deal with it?

• Grab one and see if it works. Anyone who’s ever done flat pack knows this is a good way of stripping a screw and finding the problem getting more complicated.
• Consider the situation and which is best. This too can make a problem worse since you’ve decided you know the whole situation and only need one method to solve it. Since you’ve given it consideration before hand you might think you’ve solved the problem but in fact it’s temporary and the situation is worse in the future.
• Methodically consider all your tools and all your possible steps and the potential outcomes. The problem is in life we can’t predict everything always. Even if we can accurately estimate an outcome there is probably going to be a short fall between our estimation and the actuality. So, we over compensate knowing this. We expect to come home from a days hill climbing but we also know that might not happen so we take kit to keep us going just in case. This is fine on one hand but where is too far? Wearing a crash helmet on the bus; taking a spare set of clothing just in case; wearing a seat belt?

It’s this last point that brings anxiety. When these tools are parts of your outward persona, if you’re self aware, you might be conscious of being misread as two faced or hypocritical. Here in this dichotomy lies the anxiety/crisis/conflict/dissonance.

I love being queer but I know other people would kill me for it. I love being neuroqueer but I know this is something other people consider it weirdness. I love being an army brat but hate having no ability to keep friendships or not having an answer to where are you from. I love being blind but hate being excluded because people don’t consider difference. I love being ‘British’ because it’s a beautiful country and it’s rich in history; I hate the history that means queer people were tortured, murdered and excluded moreover, the class system that denotes difference but doesn’t allow for difference. 

I’ve wrote about these different aspects in several posts before. This is one of an unintended series, as I’ve just realised. Now, I’ve been able to see that my problems exist in the space between:

• My wants/desires/needs and reality.
• My image of self and who I want to be/am seen as.
• My ambitions and those of others for me.

I can’t erase my differences and I honestly don’t think I’d want to if I could. It might make life easier for that person but that person wouldn’t be me. I could also say screw it and ignore the space, this has been tried before and I was angry and deluded which wasn’t good for anyone in retrospect. If being me is good and I should embrace it, that solves part of my problems but how do I reject others while still caring. You can’t subtract and add the same amount and expect to keep 0? Red -5 (others’ perceived reality); Blue = 5 (measurable reality); Purple = 0 (my perceived reality). If I can only slide either way to within 0.01 of either end there will still be 0.01 of the other left. Of course I could revert to an existentialist belief and the problems vanish and are replaced with only purple but we know we don’t have absolute control because that’s 1 not how science works and 2 that’s not how society works.. Sugar wont cure death even if we declare it to. It takes more time than what any of us have in life to affect change that has no flaws, actually - is there one? There isn’t by the way, there’s no such thing as absolute certainty of that I’m absolutely certain. :D