Who are You?

Well, as the title suggests I'm looking into our identity and how it is formed over time. The internal and external realities, giving a few examples as to how our persona is shaped, and what choices we have if any, in order to perhaps perceive things a little differently.

I would like to make this article a little less about me, so perhaps it will offer the reader a more individual view that is a reflection of their own thoughts, not imprinted with my own views, just the plain facts as I see them, allowing the reader to decide their own truth and what may lie beyond it. I will however use the odd reference to my own experiences, which is fairly unavoidable.

I recently posted up several links to movies that I liked (on the forum). From the outset, when you read a description or title of a film, as with the title of a book or song name, it evokes a feeling that you often feel a connection with. Often it reaches a part of the brain that is inquisitive, like you are stepping out towards a discovery of some kind.

To me there are many categories of films, some you perhaps feel a connection with, for whatever reason. I think there is some deep and meaningful reason why we steer ourselves towards a particular genre. Something we find either fascinating or appealing in some way.

Perhaps it's due to a culmination of different things that you have experienced, and would like a little more insight on. Be it a love story (romance) or a fascination for the future of society (science-fiction), there are many attributes to choose from and invest your time into exploring. Perhaps it's the fantasy world of dragons and hobbits, that you feel the need to escape into.

My choice of film tends to follow a character, often based on a true story, however it could just be a more than realistic, less fanciful situation, that I could perhaps gain insight into. Appreciating the story of someone's life struggles and how they overcome the challenges put upon them, is probably something I look for.

You are an observer, and as the external world around you fades into your subconscious, you are now living and feeling with this person, or perhaps several people within the story, engaged in its interactions you are spellbound for the entirety of the performance.

As I cast my eyes across the choice of films, whether it be on Netflix or some other source, I have a definite feel about which films I want to explore. This is obviously based upon your internal thoughts, yet sometimes we don't know exactly why we steer ourselves towards particular titles.

I'm not much of a reader, not being able to hold my concentration for too long. I used to thing this was a flaw. I was often criticized for it, yet I never seemed to be able to "fix it". It almost felt like a denial of myself somehow. Of course I was expected to achieve this or that, to get an A instead of a C, irrespective of whether I actually enjoyed whatever subject it was.

So from quite early on, there are problems arising that affect your "state". Your Psyche seems "under attack" from all sides. Instead of nurturing or caring, it felt very "different".

Yet when this happens, we naturally look at ourselves as being somehow "broken", or incomplete. Perhaps when I watch a movie and form a connection with its characters, it feels, through the eyes of the writer and director, that it somehow captures the human soul, to a degree that I haven't witnessed in the outside world before, perhaps in very small subtle memories which I hold close to my heart.

These small moments almost put me in touch with who I really am on the inside.

The only other time I truly feel "connected" is when there is a threat, either to myself or someone around me, a situation arises out of nowhere and you have to act. Often once the episode has passed, I would be asking myself "Was that me?".

There are many "versions" of me, depending on the situation and how much control I have of it. That sounds a bit like a case of multiple personality disorder, but depending heavily on the outside stimuli, your reactions can be either calm and measured, or intense and volatile. Fight or Flight mode I guess.

Knowing your wants and needs is perhaps worthy of discussion. From an early age, most of us are provided, although in differing amounts, the things that we need and perhaps some things that we want and some things that we don't want. Our lives become tied to those around us and our needs are in the hands of our carers. Thus we are shaped according to the level of these experiences.

At each degree of the scale, if you could measure such a thing, our "sovereignty" or perhaps freedom, is decided for us. We are either guided and given full sovereignty from the get go, at least once we have realized that we have access to it, or it's earned through the series of tests and hoop jumps, and given to us once we have proven ourselves. This is perhaps my own cynical viewpoint, but appears true to me for the most part.

A little like the sliding scale one could use regarding empathetic or narcissistic personalities. Depending upon your experiences, particularly in early life, you would be somewhere on the scale, say from 1 to 10, according to your outside influences.

I wouldn't say that it's always been like this or that every culture is the same in this respect. For example, in many tribal cultures particularly, it would seem that aside from the many aspects of life, such as hunting and harvesting, there were also shamans and visionaries and characters that didn't quite fit into what we would expect to be the "normal" roles within the tribal culture. All people in the tribe were accepted and the idea of men and women was more "fluid" than it is within modern society.

It wasn’t until Europeans took over North America that natives adopted the ideas of gender roles. For Native Americans, there was no set of rules that men and women had to abide by in order to be considered a “normal” member of their tribe.

Tribes weren't indoctrinated and allowed their members to be who they wanted to be, serving the tribe in whatever way they could, and for everything to work, everyone had value, and this strengthened the integrity of the tribe as a whole. Then we had "progress" which taught conformity to a preset designation for the individual. No longer had the individual complete sovereignty over their life.

Obviously, hundreds of years ahead we no longer have this ideal with which to compare our current situation with. Who we are appears to be a product of outside forces, unless we have played by the rules and climbed the ladder to better control our life. Sadly, during the process of ascending, we can lose our humanity little by little. We become shaped to the point that our individualistic nature is but a shadow, unable to draw it close for clarity.

Our spiritual nature loses out to the cold, materialistic, manufactured, consumerist and therefore exploited existence.

Even "woke" becomes a perverse version of its original tribal foundation, as it attempts to force it's way into existence. Allowing people to "be" who they are just isn't an available option in today's society.

I believe once your mind-set has been altered and programmed to conform, then all you can do to survive is to remain compliant. At least that's how the fear of being different, more sovereign, holds you back and keeps you in the hole that you were hammered into, regardless of your true shape or complexity.

With a greater understanding of others' experiences, perhaps we can, not only redefine our own lives according to what we want, but we could also affect the outcome for every one. For once people recognize that they have been coerced and even robbed to a greater degree, once the anger and frustration has subsided, they can look at ways of reverse engineering the damaging culture of compliance, finding acceptance again within our native spirits.

Our refusal to take part in the programming of our minds, and indeed our children's minds, will lead us back to our natural state and lead individuals to find out who they really are, and what they can become, not having to fall victim to any pressures placed upon them.

Changes in how we are governed, educated and allowed to live should be implemented, using resources that are ours by birth right, not owned by a corporation aiming to benefit the few.

Thanks for reading.