Saturday, December 7, 2013

Self-Identity: Fear Versus Faith

I have been thinking a lot about this concept of self-identity. I am a reflective individual and I strive for improving myself daily. There are some strengths and weaknesses that both come from looking at yourself in the mirror and they all boil down to at what magnification do you do it and in what light.

I had a Christmas party that I went to tonight at my work in downtown Salt Lake. I don't do selfies but here is one. The reason for the exception is simple. Here is a picture of me completely unaltered and unfiltered taken with my phone, which is as old school as mobile phones come nowadays. Cell phones are practically mobile offices not just phones and to have a camera on your old school "slider" is still deemed archaic when it isn't connected wirelessly to the internet through Pinterest, Instagram or Snapchat.

The things I want to accentuate are these: I like skinny ties, white on black looks just as good as black on white, and when you shave, I will admit, you look better than when you don't. That isn't really what I am getting at but I figure I might as well agree to the shaving part. If I didn't have facial hair and my face was as smooth as a baby's bottom, I would be a happy man. It really is more an annoyance than anything else.

The point I want to make is the media is a poison in our society because of the way it alters self-image. Here is a quote that will help to illustrate my point: Cindy Crawford, international super model, once was noted in saying, "I wish I looked like Cindy Crawford." Women are plagued with this ideal that they have to impossibly live up to and I don't even like using extreme verbiage such as "impossible" however in this case, it is quite literal. With computers programs and the digital age, women are shown in advertising and in the media the picture of the optimal or perfect Woman - the Woman we should all desire and live up to. This Woman who does not exist but was designed and made digitally in a virtual world is the role model for hundreds upon thousands upon millions of women. Impossibly skinny, without flaws or wrinkles or pores of any kind. She does not exist. And how does media use the Woman but to sell objects by transforming her and dehumanizing her into an object herself. She no longer is a person but a possession or an idol.

This concept of self-identity and removing the impossible ideals that society gives you is not only prevalent for women but for men. I can confess that there are days and times, not just when I was in high school, where I thought of myself as not good enough because of what I looked like. I wasn't big enough, tall enough, muscular enough, strong enough, witty enough, outgoing and extroverted enough, I wasn't the life of the party, and the list goes on and on. These thoughts and false truths that I would tell myself over and over again caused me to convince myself that I couldn't associate or date certain people because I wasn't in their league or I wasn't cool enough. It is amazing how much outside influences can affect our thinking.

I am sure no little African boy thought of himself as being black until someone told him. In the same manner, when we are little kids we think we can do anything. We don't think of ourselves not being big enough. When we age and become "mature," we don't think of ourselves as being any older or fragile than when we were 25 years old. For me, I feel like it was my size - I still hadn't hit 100 lbs even when I was 15 years old as a freshman in high school. I wasn't big enough to play football. I was too smart to hang out with the jocks. I was too shy to talk to the pretty girls. I created and accepted all these barriers that were put in front of me, limiting my own personal potential.

This idea originated tonight in part as I was driving away from a party. I had a friend who invited me to come to her roommate's birthday party. I was overdressed, a little tired, and after waiting for my friend to come (who really was the only person I wanted to talk to) I realized that I wanted to go home, get ready for bed, and watch a movie. As I was driving, the thought came to me that I needed to face my fears of social fears for large groups. I need to be more extroverted. Then I thought to myself, who said? Why do I have to be extroverted? Why do I need to feel comfortable and enjoy socializing in large groups?

Society affects the way that people perceive their own value. For instance, a child may not strive to push himself in his education because when it comes to school, he may have been told that he was successful because he was smart. He excelled in sports because he was gifted. Why couldn't we tell our children instead that they were successful or excelled because they worked hard? Wouldn't that persuade the next generation to work harder instead of thinking that things would come naturally to them. And even if that was true that they were naturally gifted, could they not find out that fact through self-discovery?

The same is true when it comes to relationships. If we are told that women are simply objects and men are simply emotionless, and at times mindless, protectors how do we interpret the heroes and heroines in the popular series, the Hunger Games? Is Gale the ideal hero or is it Peeta? Who better personifies what a Man should be? How about Katniss? How does she either conform or reject social norms? Society teaches us that we deserve things and that we should be more worried about our own self-gratification than serving and providing for others. The first thing we sacrifice for a price is ourselves when we begin to focus on what we are to gain.

Which one is most important: the norm or the personality? I would say that the best way to come to know one's self is to reject the idea of norms. The issue of racism, sexism, religious intolerance, sexual intolerance, and discrimination of any kind originates from the classification of people when people are a group of individuals, none of which are the same. This kind of classifying of people is another form of objectification. In our religion, Christ was the perfect Man. He was the epitome and personification of everything a Man should be and yet, he possessed so many feminine qualities.

If I was to take this conversation full circle, how does this apply to my social interactions... I do not like to conform. I do not like to play the game. I do not like to hold back and I choose not to wear a mask. I do my best to be authentic and to be willing to accept and embrace my vulnerability when it comes to relationships and trust. So how am I ever going to be able to meet someone when I refuse to run from the true fears that dominate our society? We all have two innate human needs: to be loved and to love. The paradox is we focus on the first when we can only find its fullness in focusing on the latter. Lasting relationships are simply not found. Relationships are kept and created through building them with faith in each other, ourselves, and in God.

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