The Born Identity
(crossposted)
It's past one AM. After 5 hours of sleep, assuming I go to bed right away, I have to get up for an 18 hour day (at best. 8 for school, 2 of errands, 2.5 rehearsal, the rest traveling between one point to an other). And yet, I can't sleep. I can't breathe. Yet again. Throughout my life I have defined myself as an artist and a criminologist, long before I even began my degree, long before I even knew precisely what criminology is. About 1-2 years ago I had a crisis of faith resulting from various events in my life, which resulted in an identity crisis. I was ready to leave school and go study acting full time. And then, a percipitating turn of events that followed restored my faith and sidelined my art once again. Over the past couple of months I have been searching my soul on here with you, or on my own, to find a purpose. I couldn't find myself doing anything other than this. As the doors on my paths come to a close, and the deadline for graduate school registration is no more than a sleep away, I begin to lose my identity.
Once again, I want to be the bigger person, the mature whole, philosophical individual that says that we are not what we do. Unfortunately, I do not believe that. I am the effect I cause in this world. We spend most of our lives at our job. Most people change the pages on their calander. Some people change the money in their bank account. Few people change the world around them (I cringe before being as pretentious as to claim there were more than only a handful of people in history to change the world as a whole, so I'll settle for a respective, subjective world). So, though we don't like it, the work we do (whether voluntarily or paid) does define us.
Now I stand before you on a melting iceberg, and the sun of time is shrinking it as we speak. If I fail at the only things I have defined myself as, who do I remain to be? Who was I ever? I fear that when it comes to it, if I have to birth myself into a new identity it will be one I won't be able to live with. Changing the pages on the calander is simply not enough for me. It will be like radiation burning me inside, through the hole in the ozone layer this identity death is causing me.
Rationality insists that the verdict isn't yet given, nor will be for a few months. I have not yet failed, technically, and The Odds are nothing but a neat music band. And if I do, the newly born identity, might be better, more fitting, to me, and perhaps these are all right turns in the path to where I'm supposed to be. But as I lay awake, washed with fear of losing the only me that I have known, I can't help but settle that rationality can eat it. Today, I'm anxiety's bitch.
It's past one AM. After 5 hours of sleep, assuming I go to bed right away, I have to get up for an 18 hour day (at best. 8 for school, 2 of errands, 2.5 rehearsal, the rest traveling between one point to an other). And yet, I can't sleep. I can't breathe. Yet again. Throughout my life I have defined myself as an artist and a criminologist, long before I even began my degree, long before I even knew precisely what criminology is. About 1-2 years ago I had a crisis of faith resulting from various events in my life, which resulted in an identity crisis. I was ready to leave school and go study acting full time. And then, a percipitating turn of events that followed restored my faith and sidelined my art once again. Over the past couple of months I have been searching my soul on here with you, or on my own, to find a purpose. I couldn't find myself doing anything other than this. As the doors on my paths come to a close, and the deadline for graduate school registration is no more than a sleep away, I begin to lose my identity.
Once again, I want to be the bigger person, the mature whole, philosophical individual that says that we are not what we do. Unfortunately, I do not believe that. I am the effect I cause in this world. We spend most of our lives at our job. Most people change the pages on their calander. Some people change the money in their bank account. Few people change the world around them (I cringe before being as pretentious as to claim there were more than only a handful of people in history to change the world as a whole, so I'll settle for a respective, subjective world). So, though we don't like it, the work we do (whether voluntarily or paid) does define us.
Now I stand before you on a melting iceberg, and the sun of time is shrinking it as we speak. If I fail at the only things I have defined myself as, who do I remain to be? Who was I ever? I fear that when it comes to it, if I have to birth myself into a new identity it will be one I won't be able to live with. Changing the pages on the calander is simply not enough for me. It will be like radiation burning me inside, through the hole in the ozone layer this identity death is causing me.
Rationality insists that the verdict isn't yet given, nor will be for a few months. I have not yet failed, technically, and The Odds are nothing but a neat music band. And if I do, the newly born identity, might be better, more fitting, to me, and perhaps these are all right turns in the path to where I'm supposed to be. But as I lay awake, washed with fear of losing the only me that I have known, I can't help but settle that rationality can eat it. Today, I'm anxiety's bitch.