la petite moi

My ancestors are European and Native American.
I am female, though admittedly, I feel uncomfortable in my body.
I am a student, francophile, wife, sister, and daughter.
I am young, but feel old.
I am atheist, bisexual, and constantly depressed.
I am my eating disorder, somedays.
I am just like everyone else.

loganmule

As I read through this thread, it struck me that the OP is essentially an old meditation exercise. "who am I" begins it (although "what am I" would work too), and whatever the response is, the next part is to ask who is the "I" that is loving, kind, male, horny etc. The point is to peel away the descriptive terms, like layers of an onion, until "I" is reached.

So there you have it...the "core of my SELF" is what's left, after the desciptive layers of "me" are all peeled away.

God I love onions.

surferlove007

How would you answer the question, "What are you?" or, "What do you identify as?"
What are the symbols that mean something to you? Is your language or flag something you define yourself with?
How about religion? Gender? Sexuality? Being human?
What is at the core of your SELF, the core of what forms your worldview, the stuff that means the most to who you are?

I am a white female student in a male dominated major.
I will succeed at life one way or another.
I am a competitor, athlete, swimmer, biker, winner, daughter, person responsible for my family's name and reputation, sister, designer.
I am proud of my heritage and my roots.
I love my parents more than they know.
I come from engineers, architects, and geniuses.
I do not suffer because my parents did.
Expectations for my life are extreme. Failing is not option.
I take too much for granted.
I stopped believing in religion after being submerged in it my entire life, school everyday and church weekends. I lose faith often. Life is so ironic.
I am independent and dependent. I am loved.
I am full of energy and life to give to this world.
I care too much. I cry too often.
I can sew my heart back together once I find the compass. I am strong.
I am my familys legacy. I will never understand the way things were for my parents, though I wish I could.
I am strong yet weak. I will not be disrespected.
My life is the Grand Canyon.
I am German, French, British, Polish, Irish, and Scottish.
My mind is a book waiting to be written.
My heart is an uncharted valley of the unknown.

I love life and everything in it.
This is really nice to do.
Great Ideas!

Hash_Browns

Who am I? hmmm...

First and foremost, I am a mother. In this position I've taken on shaping part of our future, and I feel I suck at it! But I do my best. I try to give my girls the best of me I can. My decisions are based first and foremost on how they will effect my children, an extension of myself.

Second I am human. I am my own being. I strive to be myself instead of what others expect of me, it doesn't always work, I often find myself being the person people might expect me to be. I am working on this.

I am a wife/friend/lover to a man that makes me feel whole. I thrive off of his attention and affection, without it I lose direction.

I am spiritual. I lean toward Paganism, but not really bound by most of the ideological aspects of the religion. I try to see outside of the box. Although I have these beliefs, I don't always practice them, but they are there and I lean on them when I feel the need is there.

I like to please people. To see them happy and will put myself on the line to make these things happen.

I am a listener, counselor and have a shoulder readily available. This can set me up for drama and chaos but I do it anyways.

I am always looking to find new ways to enjoy sex, the whole thing, not just the procreation version. (don't ask..just how it came out in text...I'm sure there's a better way to describe what I'm thinking.) I enjoy flirting and the ego boost I get when people flirt back.

I try to avoid big words and debates. I often feel ignorant when surrounded by people. I know what I know, and sometimes am too content to stay that way, however I am always striving to learn what interests me.

I grew up on government cheese (which was the best!) and black and white generic food labels. I am humble.

I hate the society I am raising my children in.

People often tell me I was born a decade late. Something about me being more of a hippy then my mother was. I guess it's my thought process.

I'm sure I could say more, but as usual, I find my input thus far is more then enough to bore people and was mostly done to see what I could come up with for myself.

__________________
Smile It makes people wonder what you're up too!

Pip

I think most of the identities I have are not readily apparent because I am in a place where most of them are the norm. It's only when I go to a different place or meet different people that I become aware of just how "Swedish" or "white" or "female" I truly am.

My biggest identity issue is that I flunked out of an MSc programme and ended up in humanities instead. I have the heart of an engineer and the brain of a humanities scholar, which is a pretty crappy combination if you think of it. I end up in all sorts of weird conflicts because of this. Someday I hope I'll be able to merge the two and draw strength from both disciplines, someday...

Because of this I totally identify with Dr. McNinja. Except his awesomeness is off the scale unlike mine.

streak_56

Canadian, athletic, somewhat funny, can never get past "just friends" with girls, lacks the ability to sell a car, dreams of pimping his next car out, flirts with the girls at the Auto Trader publications, Electrician, loves to ramble about useless things and depressed when he has too much free time.

little_tippler

I am a woman, though sometimes I don't feel very feminine - at all.
For many things, I still feel like a child.
I am a bit of a cynic, a bit of a pessimist but also an optimist in the making.
I am very creative and my favourite activities are mostly related with the arts. I love colour and music.
I am an only child, a bit of a loner, but I'd love to understand other people - though I'm pretty bad at communicating with them in most face-to-face situations.
I was born Portuguese, and though I feel Portuguese at times, other times I don't know what nationality you could call me. I sometimes say I feel international, because of going to an english school in Portugal all my life with kids from all backgrounds. I feel like I don't fit anywhere. But I like my country - most of the time.
I am my mother's daughter - she is a genius scientist and excels in everything she does - expectations of me are high - or they feel that way.
I am my father's daughter - he was a politician and lawyer, and a good one as far as I know, but he was terrible at personal relationships - this left me some marks.
I am intelligent and educated and a good listener.
I feel things quite intensely most of the time and am easily hurt.
I am very untidy, sometimes lazy and often feel like I have failed. I doubt myself all the time and sometimes feel like a bad person.
I am very caring, attentive and giving.
I have high expectations of others and can sometimes be unforgiving - this has softened with age.
Sometimes, because I have never been able to believe in God or any such figure, I feel like I am drifting through life aimlessly. Most of the time I'd say I'm an atheist but more recently I have thought I am an agnostic because I'm not adamant that there is no God and nothing after I die, I just think that's the most likely outcome. Since nothing else in life seems to make sense, why would that aspect of it suddenly make any?

__________________
Whether we write or speak or do but look
We are ever unapparent. What we are
Cannot be transfused into word or book.
Our soul from us is infinitely far.
However much we give our thoughts the will
To be our soul and gesture it abroad,
Our hearts are incommunicable still.
In what we show ourselves we are ignored.
The abyss from soul to soul cannot be bridged
By any skill of thought or trick of seeming.
Unto our very selves we are abridged
When we would utter to our thought our being.
We are our dreams of ourselves, souls by gleams,
And each to each other dreams of others' dreams.

Fernando Pessoa, 1918

abaya

I think this is very insightful... roachboy alluded to it earlier, and I agreed. I think people become aware of entirely new aspects of their "identity" when they leave their comfort/norm zone and experience a place where they "stick out" for whatever reason.

Which is why I think everyone (esp. American high schoolers) should be required to spend one year living abroad in a country and learning a new language. Not that it will happen anytime soon (imagine the funding for that!), but man it would change a lot of opinions, especially about foreigners, in this country.

Anyway, really cool responses to this thread, keep 'em coming!

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

raeanna74

An American, mother, and teacher at heart and a student. I may never end up teaching again in a school setting but my desire is to teach others, especially children all that I can. I've had that desire as long as I can remember. Also, I never want to stop learning. I enjoy learning more about my world, my body, my country, my child, my lover, my life.

__________________
"Always learn the rules so that you can break them properly." Dalai Lama
My Karma just ran over your Dogma.

Shadow_fire

I am an Irish guy living in a small town in Ontario, I am an anarchist, and a nihilist, I am a punk ass teenager, and I have no sex life...thats about it I think

777

UPDATE: Ok, I'm feeling slightly less depressed today. Personally, I got to stop going on forums after 1am

--------------------------------

Since I'm currantly in a "My life is pointless" rut, it may dis/color my view of who I see in the mirror:

Contrary to the way I present myself, I'm strugling, and feel like a fraud.

I had a group of friends during high school. They were a bunch of pot heads and ditched class daily. Not wanting to go down their path, I abandoned them in my junior year. I've been a loner ever since. I'm going apart from the 3 friends I have, and I'll soon be down to just 1. Soon, my video games will be my only company.
I haven't had a date since last January, and before that, since high school.
Droped out of a tech school.
Failed at a network marketing company where many other types of people have succeeded.
I'll be 28 in a few weeks and I still live with mom.
I tell people my car died, but it was impounded and sold at an auction.
I'm in danger of being fired from work.
It's easier to deal with customer complaints at work than to make small talk with my coworkers.
I don't know if I'm actually confident or have simply become very good at faking it.
I can be detached to what's important in life.
Despite the ambition my mother had to flee from her family in Mexico to start a new life in California, I have none of it.
I don't want anything, and have nothing.
Although I make a great first impression, I can't live up to it.
I have to put a small smile on my face so that people stop asking me what's wrong.
No good has ever come of my having a crush on someone.
I have four times more dept than my annual income.

__________________
"I don't know that I ever wanted greatness, on its own. It seems rather like wanting to be an engineer, rather than wanting to design something - or wanting to be a writer, rather than wanting to write. It should be a by-product, not a thing in itself. Otherwise, it's just an ego trip."

Roger Zelazny

jorgelito

What opinions about foreigners do you think that would change? What assumptions about attitudes towards foreigners do you think Americans have now?

Does that attitude work in the reverse? I always feel like an American ambassador abroad, changing the preconceptions that the "foreigners" have about Americans. I spend 3-6 months abroad every year, but my opinions on foreigners have essentially stayed the same, only minimally fluctuating within a given range.

abaya

Well, two main things come to mind at the moment, though I am sure there are more:

1) language. If every American had to learn another language, not just Spanish/French/German in a textbook in HS, but actually LEARN and speak a foreign language... I think they would have a lot more empathy for people having to learn English here in the States. I think they would also feel a lot less threatened by people speaking foreign languages around them, since hopefully they would have less of their identity invested in English alone.

2) empathy for the process of migration. If students had to live abroad in another country, I think they would be able to understand how absolutely difficult it can be to find a place in a new culture and society... and how tempting it is to stay in a comfort zone of one's own people (not that it's right to do so, but at least they would understand it instead of feeling threatened by it). I think some Americans honestly think it's "easy" to learn English, and it's "easy" to find a place in American society... when it really takes decades, generations, to really assimilate (if ever). I think having a foreign experience would help change the context of reception in the US to be much more empathetic and welcoming, instead of seeing foreigners as threats to our identity (language, jobs, taxes, whatever is en vogue).

Well, as I said in my post, I think EVERYONE (not just Americans, though I highlight them especially because we are one of the only educated populations in the world to speak only one language and not travel much outside the US) in the world should have the requirement (opportunity!) to live abroad for a year. That includes people coming to live here, and hopefully have their opinions changed about Americans, too.

As it is right now, we have tons of foreign students coming here from abroad (I married one ), but that is usually of their own choice, and they are typically from high-income families, which means that they are generally more open/exposed to English and American culture already. If we had some kind of Peace Corps requirement for every person in the world, that would just be fantastic in terms of shaking up people's naturally ethnocentric identities.

People of all backgrounds are generally closed-minded... it's just part of what makes us human beings, and has been a survival strategy to preserve our tribes and groups from incursion and change through the millenia. But at this point in our history, I think that attitude needs to change in order for our species to really adapt to the new global reality.

But it's complete fantasy on my part, of course... the most I can do is send our own children abroad at some point, or simply rotate our family from country to country as they grow up (we have 5 countries between my husband and I). I would love for them to speak five languages, though I'll probably have to settle for two or three.

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

jorgelito

Thanks for your response Abaya.

I can agree with the "comfort zone" idea that you and Roachboy submit but one hardly needs to leave the States to have that experience. For example, Teach America or any one of a number of national organizations deliver an experience of being outside one's own comfort zone and walking in another man's shoes. In one case, my brother spent his Spring Break on a Chippewa reservation, which blew his mind away. It helped him understand what other minorities go through etc. The next summer he spent working with gang youth in Detroit. These experiences are well qualified as outside the comfort zone and learning about other cultures and learning how difficult it is to "find a place in culture and society". As a former remedial student, I am all too familiar with the trials and tribulations of trying to find a place in culture and society. And every time I work the homeless shelter in Hollywood I am reminded of that.

While I agree that traveling and living abroad is a great idea in general, it most certainly is not a definitive gateway to broader understanding and empathy. Most Americans I meet overseas remain distinctly American. Most don't bother to learn any words of the language (especially since English is so widely spoken), and most seem to miss the nuances and sublimity of the local culture. Not all of course, but many. In fact, it always seems like they just want to storm the local tourist attraction, take pictures then go get drunk.

In general, I think learning languages is a wonderful thing. I am the "retard" in my family because I only know 3 languages whereas everyone else knows more. But I think the empathy for fellow immigrants and would-be Americans need not necessarily come from the task of learning another language, but rather one of learning the common tongue of your adopted home. All immigrants had to learn English and I believe that is one of the most unifying things in our country. As a son of immigrants, I also live in a heavy immigrant neighborhood that is fairly diverse. Most speak poor English, but with pride and wave the Stars and Stripes with enthusiasm. Only segment of the neighborhood refuses to learn English and flies a different flag. Although I speak their language, there is still a major barrier there that is not present with the other immigrant groups in our neighborhood.

I don't think Americans think it's easy to learn English as most don't even speak it properly and are barely literate. However, "bad" English is the common unifier and everyone can learn and speak bad English with relative ease. It's part of the dynamic nature of our strange and fascinating language. Where else do you get "truthiness" and "bootylicious"? (I had a difficult time trying to explain bootylicious to a bunch of Egyptians when I was in Egypt this summer ).

Abaya, I don't think it's a fantasy, I think we are on our way there, slowly but surely. We can thank globalization in part for it. Your own marriage is a fantastic example and the numbers are only growing. We could all do with opening up our minds a bit, regardless of where we stand on this issue.

You can enroll your kids in language class right alongside with mine.

warrrreagl

Red-headed Scorpio born without tonsils.

__________________
Living is easy with eyes closed.