Whoever it is I am seems to be stranger, much less familiar to me, as the years go by. Goals have morphed, plans have failed, hopes have faded. New, enticing, and probably just-as-elusive possibilities and opportunities have presented themselves. Friendships, relationships, and communities that I now know were part of defining me have changed. I get off track. I indulge distractions. I take jobs I hate just to pay bills or for the long-term possibility. I get tired. I give in. I give up. I forget. I lose my way.
Now, after more than enough time to be settled and stable, I'm not able to dispense a simple line for the "And what do you do?" handshake. The identity thing throws me. There's what you thought you were or could be or would be, and then there's what actually you do most of the time. There's what you aim for, and then there's what happens. There's you, and then there's the world and what the world says you are or can be. Actually, not just world. World. With a capital W.
For some people, all these storylines flow very nicely together on the same stage for the same show. For others, it's more like a multi-genre multi-authored Fellini-esque dramatic comedy. Actually, not just others. Others. With a capital O. For us Others, the whole scene can just seem like one long lifetime of Clash.
I'm one of the Others, and maybe you are too. If you're one of the Others, you might, like me, find yourself unconsciously trying to believably perform your World-assigned role to the World's satisfaction -- while simultaneously, perpetually, and secretly plotting out some other role in some other completely unscripted plot. Actually, not just role. Role. With a capital R. That you keep doing on an unlit backstage where hardly anybody else ever goes.
If you're 5' 4", 100 pounds, female, it might not break your heart if you long to play point-guard for the Celtics but never even get scouted for the team. But somebody else -- somebody who might be getting all stretched out within the ubiquitous predicament between World Role and an at least remotely realistic Other-Role-possibility… somebody else who's, say, 6'2", 200 pounds, male -- might want to nurture orchids, write fiction, and sip tea while the World wants him to be a sandblaster, weapons designer, or prison guard.
Too bad for him. The World with this identity thing is a phenomenon like the force that compels planets to revolve around suns. Like forces of momentum, inertia, empty vacuums, and all the laws of physics, the World-Created Role works like unconquerable gravity to ID you with its branding iron and keep you small, or big, or wounded, or helpless, or powerful, or free, or whatever it is that's congruent with whatever your era’s pre-ordained Laws of Role happen to be. If you fit, you get to be a tidy package with a popular brand. Actually, Brand. With a capital B.
But Other-Wise -- when you find yourself to be seriously widdershins but you manage to put on a good act for the Role by means of some kind of Mask -- the self-assured World with all its immutable directives will probably look at you the way the constable-on-patrol looks at an incorrigible barfly with a passion for scotch. All that day-jobbing and moonlighting and backstage rehearsing (if not performing) that you do will look to The World like the intolerable misbehavior of a lush returning again and again to the forbidden tavern for an addictive, self-destructive drink.
Even though this... I just searched for a word for it and there isn't one, so I'll try to throw a loop around it with the term "self-undiscernable self"... even though this unoutlined, self-undiscernable self I seem to have invented that constitutes what's supposed to be the topic of this blog is sort of the opposite of what I think I once expected, it's comforting to realize that I should be glad to discover I don't know myself well enough anymore to introduce myself as a branded package to somebody else.
I'm thinking maybe, if you don't know who you are, then maybe The Laws of The Roles of The World that make your neck and stomach ache so much -- maybe they haven't had the usual effect on you. Maybe you're unindoctrinated enough to set your own stage for a story you write yourself, where the entire cast gets to play and work Roles they all love.
Maybe The World doesn't have a Role for me at all. Maybe a Role is just a role. Maybe The World is just the world. Maybe the world is just as indifferent to all the stories I might create as the stage is. Maybe the world as The World and a role as A Role is a completely made-up story that I bought into. That would mean the idea that My Own Role and The World's Role For Me are out of synch is just another mind-mumbling story, right?
So who am I. Well, for my Masked Role, I've been known to write about software applications and technology (quite a bit of that, actually), and stuff to help sell it. For my unmasked role, I live to finish some creations and get them out of backstage. Some of my creations are stories that rhyme, some are pictures for stories that rhyme, some are stories that rhyme with a melody, some are short stories. Once upon a time, it was moving pictures with stories. I made a short 16mm movie (dark suspense thriller) way back when people made movies with silver-nitrate film, splicers, and tape.
A few years ago, I decided to focus on just one of my stories, a poem called Catland, and get it done "quickly" so I could move on to other more time-consuming projects. A freaking DECADE or so later, I have several illustrations for that story, a work-in-progress website, an almost-finished PDF for an ebook of it, a home-made audio recording of it, and a lot of work for a board game based on it done.
I’ve got plans for another a blog. Various other ideas I won’t go into… here… yet.
And now the extraordinary possibilities and opportunities of regularly contributing to this site and community.
So this is some of the mind-mumbling I did in my struggle to understand why I dread introducing myself so much. Hiding out gives me that comforting illusion of safety, but it's like impersonating a troll and going through life with about as much imagination as a cinderblock.
High praises, deep thanks, respectful salutes, resounding applause to the creators of Steemit for creating such an ingenious people-celebrater.