Who am I?

How a simple question caused an identity crisis.

It seemed like a fairly straight forward request, create a map of my identity and answer the question, ‘How will my identity change over the next few years?’ It should have been easy, and apparently it should have taken approximately 20 minutes. Instead, it took days, several conversations with bewildered elderly strangers and a threat, albeit empty, to quit this degree in the first week that included a dramatic toss of my new Macbook across the room — onto the sofa of course.

But why all the angst over identity?

Identity is a word we all know how to use and for the purposes of day to day discourse, think we understand. But identity is a very complex concept that is constantly changing making it difficult to define — many have tried, and the list of definitions is long and diverse.

Ask one person what their identity is, and they may list their name, age and ethnicity — those things that differentiate them from someone else. Ask another and they may make a statement about their social identity such as ‘I identify as queer’ — highlighting their sameness and membership with a certain group.

I put the question of identity to an elderly lady I run into frequently, and her answer was, ‘I’m Alice.’ When prompted with ‘but what makes Alice, Alice?’ the response, from that 86-year-old was thus, ‘Oh what a load of nonsense’.

So why did I have trouble with the answer? In part it was about nouns, and verbs. Breaking my ‘me’ness’ into categories felt more like a list of ‘what I do’, not ‘who I am’. Categories like, mother, student, and employee are roles that have been assigned to me, some temporally constant, some just temporary. How can something I do temporarily, be part of my identity, the essence of me, the me as a noun?

This view, I now know, is problematic and narrow as it assumes that identity is in some way fixed and internal instead of the way it is understood today as a public construction— a social project, in constant flux. Our identities encompass our ever-changing roles, and personas, the traits and affiliations that are important at any given time and the way we present ourselves to the world in the moment, regardless of whether that presentation is fact, fiction or somewhere in-between.

It is not however just ourselves that are the architects of our identities, the views others have of us, real or imagined, as well as the expectations of others all inform our identity. The idea that identity influenced and is in many ways formed outside of us is not new, “I am not who you think I am; I am not who I think I am; I am who I think you think I am”, was stated by sociologist Charles Cooley in 1902 in his Looking Glass Self Theory which described how identity is influenced and even based on how individuals believe others see them. This concept again highlights our constantly shifting identities, as each encounter with a person or group will shape and reshape us based on how we think that person or group perceives us.

So, was I able to map my identity? Have I resolved my crisis of identity? Yes and no. I shifted my thinking, split myself up into categories, labelled myself and finished the task, but while I may be a few steps closer to it, the answer to ‘who I am’ remains as yet mystery.