Who are you?
Have a look in the mirror. There’s YOU.
There’s some clothes and hair. Beneath that, some skin and genitalia. Beneath that some genes and predispositions. Beneath that, some thoughts and desires. Beneath that, some beliefs and convictions. Is that you? Of course. But is that it?
Are you a list of adjectives? A few statistics? Are you a member of a group or a data point in a graph? Is that WHO YOU ARE? Or is there something else beneath that?
Who are you?
A neuroscientist named Iain McGilchrist wrote a book called The Master and His Emissary. It’s about how the two hemispheres of the human brain look at the world in different ways. This is a drastic oversimplification, but the left hemisphere is the side that knows and the right hemisphere is the side that learns. The left goes from A to B while the right explores. The left focuses on details and the right sees the big picture. Identity is supposed to be a right-brain concept.
It’s like quantum mechanics: you know it’s real, you know it’s there, but you also know that you have no idea how it works. You don’t pretend that you understand how quantum mechanics works. Why pretend you know how identity works?
The one major downside of the scientific revolution is that, in the explosion of things that we suddenly know, we have lost track of the fact that our right hemisphere, our slightly fuzzy big picture, is us. The left hemisphere that thinks it understands the world in clear, crisp, perfect detail, is merely a tool we use. So our left-hemisphere-idolizing society tries to serve up identity with a list of things we know, adjectives and statistics. “You are your clothes and hair,” it says. “You are your skin and genitalia.” That’s a lie. And, deep down, you know it. Even if you don’t know why. Because your right hemisphere is slightly fuzzy.
There’s a classic Greek thought experiment called the Ship of Theseus. Theseus, the great hero of Athens, had a ship in which he had many adventures. When he returned home, the Athenians vowed to preserve the ship for all eternity. When the sails started to tear, new sails were put on. When the oars started to warp, new oars were made. When the planks started to rot, new planks were laid. After not too long at all, every person who had seen the original ship had died, every nail and stitch aboard had been replaced. Is it the same ship?
Of course it’s the same ship. You know how I know it’s the same ship? Because I know that if I gain 200 pounds, dye my hair, spend so much time in the sun I turn chocolate, convert to a new religion, loose my teeth, and become vegan, I’m still going to be me. I can change literally every single adjective about me and every single group I belong to and, by the way, every cell in my body and still be me.
And I do. I change things about myself all the time. I change the style of clothes I wear, I change my political and religious beliefs, I change my dream career from movie star to teacher to shepherd to architect. And I know that I could be happy and fulfilled doing any of them. A couple weeks ago, I changed one of the 7 core theses of my philosophy on life. And I never stopped, even for a moment, being me.
Identity, like the brain, is the synthesis of two different sides, two needs every human is driven to satisfy in life: a home and a quest, a sense of belonging and a sense of purpose. Find those and “identity” simply falls into place.
Home
Belonging is about sharing things with people. You can share blood and religion. You can share clothes and hair. You can share skin color and genitalia. And you can belong with those you share them with.
I was born and raised in Denver. I’m a Broncos fan. I have never felt a sense of belonging so palpable as when we won Super Bowl 50. I went downtown and everyone was dressed in orange, we were all ecstatically happy about the same thing, we were all drinking and dancing together. We were one.
And the Broncos don’t matter. Not even a little bit. I could not tell you who the Broncos quarterback is right now. I do not know what 4th and 10 means. It’s just a tribe I was born into and it feels good to belong.
I went to my brother-in-law’s bachelor party last summer. We got a cabin up in the mountains and we ate steak, sipped whiskey and smoked cigars. It’s okay to celebrate being a man. Men have done some pretty great stuff. It’s a good tribe to be a part of. It’s also okay to be proud to be English and German and Swedish and Polish. The different flavors of white people I was born into are also good tribes. They’ve done some good stuff.
But there is a danger with belonging. Loving the tribes you belong to is one side of the coin, but the other side is hating the tribes you don’t belong to.
When I was somewhere around 8 years old, I went through a phase of hating femininity and everything I associated it with. I distinctly remember throwing a fit when the Shania Twain song “Man, I Feel Like A Woman” came on the radio. And I distinctly remember what I was feeling when I threw that fit: left out. Not invited. There’s a group full of people I want to be closer to but, no matter what I do, I will never be a part of that group.
Today some (most) of my favorite people in the world are women. And I do belong with them. The things we have in common far outweigh the things we don’t.
But the point is that having negative feelings about a group you don’t belong to is the most natural thing in the world. And it doesn’t take much to nudge those natural human feelings off the cliff into the evils of misogyny and racism.
Daryl Davis is an extremely talented pianist. As a black man touring around the south in the 1980s, he became friends with members of the Ku Klux Klan. Just like with me and my misogyny, Davis discovered that the cure for racism is to learn how much more similar individuals from different tribes are than different. To date, somewhere around 60 of Davis’ friends (and he estimates around 200 friends of friends) have left the Klan and renounced white supremacy.
The thing about intersectionality is that there are an infinite number of adjectives that can describe you, and each one unites you with a tribe. But no one shares everything with anyone. At the end of the day, we’re all minorities of one and we have to find our own way to belong with people who are different from us.
Quest
The second half of identity is purpose. You have to have something to do with your life.
When I was young, I wanted to be in the film industry. I even went to film school for 2 years. But there was no way I was willing to debase myself by starting at the bottom. I would write or direct, nothing less.
So for the last 7 years, I have worked at the local grocery store. I bagged groceries for a few months, I cashiered for a few months, then I moved to the produce department. By the time I finally left at the beginning of this year, I had worked 7 of the 10 departments in the building. One of the first lessons I learned at that job was that starting at the bottom is awesome. Foundational skills and knowledge are invaluable. And all useful work has dignity. Being a department manager at a grocery store could have been a great career.
Having some kind of job is important. It gives lazy, unmotivated people like myself the opportunity to get something done every day. But most jobs aren’t interesting or exciting. I can tell you that I never dreamt of stacking apples when I was a kid. But I took pride in my work, I did it very well. My work accomplished something. I was useful to people. And I could feel good about my day when I got home and turned on the TV. There’s nothing wrong with that.
For many people, all you need in life is to feel productive 40 hours a week and do what you need to do to take care of your family. That’s purpose. That is your life’s quest.
For others, creativity is not an option. Not creating is like not eating. You just slowly wither away.
Do you know Etsy? It’s a website where people can sell their handmade jewelry and candles and sweaters, or custom paintings, or refurbished typewriters. It’s an amazing opportunity for people everywhere to integrate that creative outlet into their lives. YouTube and blogs provide the same opportunity for different outlets.
As a creative person, you don’t need anyone’s permission. You can make your creativity a part of your everyday life and share it with like-minded people across the globe.
If you have the desire to be a part of something bigger than yourself, there have never been more opportunities to change the world for the better.
Have you heard of Boyan Slat? He’s a Dutch kid who grew up obsessed with the oceans, in particular the mountains of plastic that we’ve put into them. When he was 16 years old, he went to Greece and started experimenting with designs for a system to scoop up all the plastic without scooping up all the ocean life. After a viral TedTalk and a crowdfunding campaign, he founded The Ocean Cleanup in 2013. As of last summer, they had collected well over a million pounds of plastic out of the oceans and recycled it.
I’m not saying you should be a genius and invent a new way to clean the oceans, but I am saying that The Ocean Cleanup is accepting volunteers and donations today, just like Doctors Without Borders, World Vision and your local animal shelter.
Find something you’re passionate about and make a difference. What’s stopping you?
So who are you? Are you defined by your skin color or genitalia? Are you defined by your pronouns? Are you defined by your political party?
Or are you ready to stop trying to DEFINE yourself and start BEING yourself?
