A few days ago

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 13 July 2006 16:07:32

I was thinking about identity.

I suppose I mean the thing that makes me me and you you. There are a few tags floating around the blogosphere that work on the premise that if you know what my five favourite wildflowers are then you'll know me. In fact blogs quite generally touch on this question of identity. By what I write you know something about me. By my choice of name you know something about me. Or at least you think you do. A fellow wiblogger has named herself after a pen, and then commented on the fact that it's a silly name. But even so it tells us something about her - that she cares about pens, at least enough to notice the writing on them.

Unfortunately it tends to be the case that if you know something about someone, and that's all you know about them, then you tend to think that they are that thing. I might be tempted to think that pens are the focal point of Fineline's life. Or if I only know that so-and-so is an alcoholic and I don't know anything else about them, then I will tend to think of that person as an alcoholic, even though it may only represent a tiny part of their identity. Many people I have professional contact with only know one side of me, but that defines their image of me and their idea of me. Even though it may only be a small part of what is really me. Mind you, if everyone has a certain limited idea of what you are, then eventually you can find yourself playing to that, and the other parts of you can fade away until they are no longer there. Which can, I believe, screw you up somewhat.

In the blog world of course we choose what parts of our identity (if they are parts of our identity at all - see my earlier entry) we project. But what exactly am I trying to convey by calling myself lanark? And what does someone read from that? Does it say anything at all about either me or the me that I want to pretend to be? And what about the stuff I write - do I choose that on the basis of what I want to project, or why? Well, there are many reasons of course, but I have been wondering why I've been laying into myself so much lately and writing lots of nasty things. (Actually it's all a bit more postmodern than that - I've been wondering what you will think about what I'm thinking because of what I've written). I suppose one could construe them as appeals for sympathy or as complement-fishing - if I tell you I hate myself then you'll tell me I'm not as bad as all that. But my best guess is that it's not really that so much as trying to preempt criticism (again!). If I write here about how unpleasant I am then hopefully nobody will feel the need to point it out to me. What a silly reason to write anything.