Thoughts on Identity
With modern dating apps like Tinder, people are forced to make superficial assessments about how they advertise themselves to others, which will never provide an accurate representation of someone’s entire being. Using myself as an example, if I were creating a dating profile, I would be forced to consider whether I want my photos to market myself as being athletic, outdoorsy, book-loving, fashionable etc.
Even if I were to carefully curate my image based on what I thought was an accurate representation of myself, it still wouldn’t provide details on my values, beliefs, or personality, and I think this sets up many people for disappointment when they realize a person’s values don’t match with their own despite having superficial imagery or shared activities that they deem desirable in a partner.
Personally, I would prefer to never be identified by any singular thing or even a collection of things. I don’t want somebody else to have any superficial assumptions of who I am because of a selection of my passions and pursuits. Not soccer, not photography, not fisheries, not even environmental activism. These activities may help someone understand how I choose to spend my time, but they can shift as my interests change, and they don’t necessarily help people understand me at a personal level. For example, people who knew me in my youth might still only think about me (if they ever think about me) as somebody consumed by soccer, but that’s far from my reality nowadays.
These activities are also constrained by the societal structures in which we exist. Meaning that if we did not live in a capitalist system, I don’t think my career, or my extracurricular activities would be similar to what they are currently. I have a job that’s necessary to maintain my existence (to provide food, shelter, etc.) and any remaining resources (i.e., free time, money) support pursuits that I find meaningful. Many of these pursuits (e.g., soccer, working out at the gym, cycling) have all been commodified like everything under capitalism, which means that even my extracurricular activities have been constrained by what’s available from the market and is deemed financially profitable to the owners of capital.
I would hope to be remembered as caring and empathetic, and that I lived with the intention of being a morally good person (as judged by myself and others). I have a drive for knowledge and to gain a holistic understanding of our existence across all fields from the scientific or natural, to the experiential or spiritual. I have a deep passion for understanding what it is like to be somebody different from myself. To feel what somebody else is experiencing in a given moment, because I feel that bridging the gap between personal experience is a key to making our world a friendlier place to live for everybody.
When you consider our future on a greater time scale, I recognize that none of my achievements will have any merit beyond my own existence. Whatever I can achieve in my life, none of it will matter in 100 years, and even less in 1000. Therefore, I should only seek any meaning and value from my relationships with the people I love and care for, rather than pursuits that might satisfy my ego in the short term.
The only things I want to be identified with, and remembered for, are the contents of my character and the relationships I have helped to cultivate. So long as they exist in the minds of others, the memories we have shared are the only things of importance that will outlast me, and I would hope that they are full of love and joy. To dream that a grandchild of mine (or my brother, or a friend) might mention my name in a loving way to somebody I will never meet would be the ultimate validation that I have lived a life worth living.
