I’ve noticed a paradox: the harder we try to justify and define our identity with a straightforward equation, the more convoluted it gets with an increasing number of variables. It is an endeavor we pursue for our entire life, this so-called journey of ‘self-discovery’—it may even be the fundamental struggle of our existence. Our ‘self’ is an unknown that we spend an entire lifetime trying to solve in the hope of gaining a sense of certainty and control. (Control over what? The narrative, I guess.)
These urges to travel inwards and explore one’s ‘self’ often increase during periods of uncertainty, mutating into what one might call an identity crisis. I personally was in the throes of said crisis a few months ago, as my final year of college threatened to abandon me on the fault lines of true adulthood. It was a self-alienation of sorts, where I looked into the mirror and the grown face that looked back at me was unnervingly unfamiliar. I was pushing against the strong currents of time in the search of a tangible sense of self. But of course, how does one even know where to start looking? The ocean of life is vast, and I was drifting aimlessly.
A strange dualism had emerged from this disconnect— I was both the actor on stage and the viewer in the audience; this was not a peaceful detachment of the self as the Buddhists and Hindus teach us as much as it was a violent act of performance. In searching for my ‘true identity’, I had created multiple characters of myself, none of which were wholly me. They were finely tuned to (and shaped by) the people they interacted with, and constantly monitored by the viewer who observed each action with a critical eye. Talk about self-spectatorship. I was my own harshest critic even amidst external scrutiny.course, how does one even know where to start looking? The ocean of life is vast, and I was drifting aimlessly.
This is not a unique experience by any means; plenty of literature across centuries have documented this feeling of alienation from one’s own self. As German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm described it, ‘The need to feel a sense of identity stems from the very condition of human existence, and it is the source of the most intense strivings.’. We constantly yearn for a complete understanding of ourselves, whatever that may entail.
For me, it all stemmed from a need to curate a whole person instead of whatever incomplete version seemed to be residing in this body. I can’t describe it as anything less than a constant need to assign myself a personhood in neat poly-pocket binders— perhaps in the hope that doing so would make this journey of life less tumultuous. Being a twenty-something meant searching for security and familiarity in something, anything. I guess I was convinced that having an identity I was confident in was the cheat code for navigating life, and perhaps if I succeeded in creating some concrete ‘me’ with a clearly defined set of characteristics and mannerisms, a good future would be guaranteed. Maybe being ‘definable’ was the gateway to having a sense of control—if I couldn’t control my life path, surely I could control my identity.
My fears for the future hinged on the worry that not ‘knowing’ myself would lead me astray, and that the only way to have a successful life was to have every last detail of my personhood planned out, like a résumé. Humans are not a constant though, and any semblance of stability in one’s identity is probably an illusion at its best. Maybe we are simply a rough draft meant to be written and rewritten, over and over and over and over by our circumstances and the people around us. There are so many variables that define us—good and bad—and the layers of learning and unlearning we weave through in our lifetimes means that our identity is never fixed, and that might just be the beauty of it all.
Meticulously curating my ‘self’ was as inauthentic as it could get. It was rooted in a desperate perfectionism and selfishness, and I was never going to be satisfied with whatever persona I had defined anyways. In the process of ‘self-discovery’, I had created multiple static fragments of myself rather than embrace the dynamic whole. This resulted in a performance, a mockery of how life was meant to be lived, that is, in connection with everything around us. We get so caught up in manufacturing an ideal version of ourselves and calling it self-discovery that we forget that we exist in more than three dimensions. Humans are not a one-stroke painting but a growing mosaic of a thousand emotions, people, experiences.
Life is constantly in flux. I think the search for a fixed identity is futile; I am not the same person I was two seconds (much less two years) ago. I’ve realized that it is more beneficial to simply welcome the changes and external factors that shape who I am than actively hunt for something so fickle. It is not a relinquishment of control, per se. I see it as an acceptance of the negative spaces between myself, the gaps that may have seemed isolating but that I now know are to be filled with experiences and memories over the course of my entire lifetime.
Because after everything, that moment of revelation may not even arrive— there may always be an element of ambiguity and unpredictability regarding our own selves that pervade our entire existence, from birth to death. I don’t think rumination and introspection is inherently bad by any means—an unexamined life is not worth living etc., etc. However, there is a beauty in our incompleteness, and I’ve learnt to make my peace with that.