Identity is a weird thing. It is totally exclusive to its owner. Just like a fingerprint, they are shaped by a kaleidoscope of factors. Which seems kind of random at times, like why should seeing a scary movie about boats as a child make me scared of them for 10 years. This random event made me miss out on things that would have Further developed my identity, like seeing Murder Boat XIV: Return of Bob the Blood Boat™ with my friends or going on that boat trip with my family. So, what has my identity done? On that note why do they even matter? Why can’t we all be biological machines completely devoid of any sense of identity? It is our anchor. In a turbulent sea that is life, an identity grounds us somewhere. From there we can branch out and develop relationships with other people. Soon entire groups of people kept afloat in the sea of life altogether.
So, what is an identity? In my opinion, it is some total of all your experiences, relationships, likes, dislikes, thoughts, origins, and, surroundings. Now it is entirely random which one will have the greatest effect on your personality and most of the time it varies from person to person. Mostly it matters on what they take away from these pieces that make their identity. So, for instance, if someone really values being the type of person who likes the color aquamarine and builds their life around it. It will affect what kind of experiences they have, how they interpret their origins, and, what they dislike. It’s so hard to say what has an exact effect on how someone identifies themselves. Because someone could just choose to disengage with a massive part of their identity like how they hate their origin, but is that really disengaging from that part of their identity or increasing how much of their identity that is define by it?
Ok so, what do identities do for us. Well, I said previously I think they anchor us to the world. It’s a survival strategy essentially. If we have a fear of losing ourselves it makes us more invested in our lives. It gives us a reason to feel emotions and to change things. So, we have this cumulative process of building on ourselves by which we can extrapolate purpose. Were able to be more than we’re supposed to be because in all honesty nature just wants us to be reproducers and if that’s all we were with conscious minds. We would just kill ourselves in all likelihood.
Identities matter because they’re more than the sum of their parts. They’re not just random tidbits about someone or accidental coincidences growing up. We are our identities and they drive us for better or for worse. They push us to see more, they push us to do more, and, they push us to feel more.
