Thursday, November 22, 2012

Identity Crisis

"Tell us about who you are."

Who am I? 

The truth is, I don't really know. 

The past two years has been an incredible journey of self-discovery and change for me. My involvement with the amazing people at various NGOs, research institutes, schools, and conferences have shaped, bent, demolished and rebuilt my conception of self again and again, so much so that I am truly not the person I was two years, or even one year ago.

In a short two years, I've gone through various crises of faith: I started out as a Buddhist, briefly became an atheist, and now I'm agnostic. My political beliefs have been a roller-coaster:  from right wing free marketeer to left wing social liberal and now a centrist and moderate. Even my opinion of food, one thing I always thought would be constant, has been challenged: I find myself meeting people who have turned vegetarian for one reason or another and I question whether I can continue eating away with a guilty conscience. 

People who know me from my Wesley days call me an idealistic, melodramatic chatterbox. Those who know me from my early ISKL days might call me a reserved, skeptical realist. Those who know me now probably say I'm a mixture of both. I used to think I was pretty knowledgeable about the world, and I frequently made assumptions about people. But now it seems the more I learn, the more I realise that I know so little. 

Man, I must sound like a really funky cocktail gone wrong. But in truth, I don't think that's a bad thing. I try to reconcile the differences, to recognise the conflicts that are happening within me, so that I can know myself a little bit better.

And so to answer the question: Who am I?

I still don't know. And I may never really know.

But I plan to find out. =)

P.S. How have you changed these past years? Who are you? I'd like to hear, and thank you so much for reading!

3 comments:

  1. I'd say you're a vibrant, hand-woven Persian carpet :)

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    1. Hahah brilliant Lua! I actually love Persian carpets, my family keeps quite a few! Thank you!

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  2. Who are you?

    This is a question easily answerable.

    You are what you define yourself to be. Remember Rene Descartes? Cogito ergo sum.

    People can accuse of their shortcomings and personal tendencies of being defective genes, but at the end of the day, you still have the choice to define what you truly am.

    The only thing that doesn't change in life, is change itself. The world is constantly changing - its entropy, the culture of its people, its environment - and life is like that too. If you keep asking on, the question will be rendered pointless. So the only way out is to set a definition.


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