What is your identity?
Your identity can be stolen from an internet thief who knows how to hack computers just as easily as it can be stolen by your 14-year-old sister who wants to be “just like you.” But do you know your identity?
I found myself pondering this question about a year ago. I was watching the Nanny Diaries and I came across the scene when the main character, Annie Braddock (played by the ravenous Scarlett Johansson), is sitting in an interview with Goldman Sachs. The interviewer than asks the character a simple question:
“Tell me in your own words, who exactly is Annie Braddock?”
At this point in the movie, I wandered into my kitchen to find some coffee ice cream to shovel into my mouth. I’d seen the movie multiple times and I knew what came next. Annie Braddock freezes up unable to answer the question because she herself, does not know who she is.
I pondered the question over a bowl tub of coffee ice cream because I myself didn’t know how to answer it (neither about her nor myself). I didn’t know it at the time, but I couldn’t answer that simple question because I didn’t know my identity, nor did I know what identity is.
According to that trusty friend we call Wikipedia, identity is the matter of a subjects persistent, unchanging nature. There’s a popular example used in many philosophy classes that questions the identity of a watch. If your Grandfather were to give you a very old watch and each piece were to slowly break and be replaced until none of its original pieces were left, would it still be your Grandfather’s watch? Identity works in a similar fashion. What parts of you remain the same and which parts are swapped out and slowly replaced? Do you remain the same with each piece that comes and goes?
How do you perceive your own unchanging self?
Like the watch, which parts of you are permanent and which parts change with time? What do you use to describe yourself and how do others describe you? This is your identity and it is how you perceive both yourself, and other’s perception of you.
Some may describe themselves first by their relationships stating that they are a girlfriend or sister. Most would probably describe themselves by their job, saying they are a writer, business executive, or student. And some may describe themselves by their nature, saying they are curious or serious.
Now, I pose the same question to you: in your own words, please tell yourself who you are?
[Featured Image Credit: The Nanny Diaries]
