Is what I am, who I am?

[Never]

It occurred to me while reading one of Marxist's posts that a few people here create a great deal of their image on one aspect of themselves.

Marxist dwells on his blackness.
cymbidia dwells on her maschocistness.
p_p man dwells on his Europeaness
Oliver Clozoff dwells on his doctorness
Laurel dwells on her liberalness
And I dwell on my lesbianess to give a few examples.

Why do you think people define themselves so strongly (I'm not saying solely) on one aspect?
How does that aspect become so important to them?
Is there one aspect that strongly defines who you are?
Do you think it's healthy/good to do so?

Naturally, I have my thoughts on the matter but I'm interested in other's as well.

 

[Svedish_Chef]

What the fuck do I dwell on?

 

[Ravenloft]

Yeah! And after you do him, do me too!
We all want to know what we dwell on you know...

I think I dwell on... Apples! No... Wait... Thats Ren... Damn... What do I dwell on?

 

[Marxist]

It occurred to me while reading one of Marxist's posts that a few people here create a great deal of their image on one aspect of themselves.

Marxist dwells on his blackness.
cymbidia dwells on her maschocistness.
p_p man dwells on his Europeaness
Oliver Clozoff dwells on his doctorness
Laurel dwells on her liberalness
And I dwell on my lesbianess to give a few examples.

Why do you think people define themselves so strongly (I'm not saying solely) on one aspect?
How does that aspect become so important to them?
Is there one aspect that strongly defines who you are?
Do you think it's healthy/good to do so?

Naturally, I have my thoughts on the matter but I'm interested in other's as well.

You're a lesbian? That changes everything.

 

[Never]

How so?

 

[Mensa]

Who, what, where, when, why, how?

Nobody knows what I am, so they can't really know who I am! The same could be said for a goodly number on this Board.

 

[Beaker]

What do I dwell on?

Felt

 

[Mischka]

Well, I know *some* people dwell on how stress free I am...

What do I dwell on? My law studentness, and to a lesser extent, the significance of horses to my heritage.

 

[Marxist]

My avatar hates your av. But then again she hates everyone.

 

[Marxist]

How so?

That was a...uh....joke. Goddamnit I'll learn to use the emoticons one of these days.

 

[RisiaSkye]

I think that people tend to express most often the parts of themselves that they're most defensive about, for whatever reason. Perhaps that's narrowing our view of our personal identities, perhaps not.

Some of us have been repeatedly attacked (in various forms) for skin tone, sexual identity, income level, education, lifestyle choices, etc. A nice anonymous forum like the internet is a good place to work out our feelings about those categories, the ways that our relationships to them define us, and defend our position as we see it.

I'm a European descended, youngish, bisexual, pale complected, blonde, American female graduate student who comes from poverty and has joined the middling classes. All of those things inform my identity to at least some degree. And all of those categorical definitions are subject to attack from someone.

So, yes. What you are is who you are, at least to the extent that you use the categories of difference to articulate your identity to yourself and others.

 

[KillerMuffin]

I dwell on Earth.

I dwell on my intelligence. I know I do this because I'm easily offended when people mock it or imply it doesn't exist.

I think that the things we dwell on, think about a lot and use as one of the stronger definitions of ourselves, are the things we're overly sensitive about. It's like we're afraid that it's not as strong as it should be and that we have to defend it or something.

 

[letsallgetlaid]

Totally agree

I completly agree with Risa.
I think that also sometimes it is the things that we least get to express out daily lives.

 

[Marxist]

Re: Totally agree

I completly agree with Risa.
I think that also sometimes it is the things that we least get to express out daily lives.

.......but most often are judged on.

 

[Laurel]

I dwell in Southern California, with two cats and my dude.

Dwell magazine is a fabulous magazine, btw.

_______

*This insightful commentary has been brought to you by Diet Pepsi and a bag of Doritos.

 

[Svedish_Chef]

Almost a Never sigline

*This insightful commentary has been brought to you by Diet Pepsi and a bag of Doritos.

 

[Never]

*Is compeled as a lesbain to steal a couple of Doritos from Laurel*

 

[Laurel]

Keep your lesbian self out of my leftist Doritos!

Why do they have multiple Dorito flavors when they all taste the same?

What was the topic again?

 

[RisiaSkye]

Re: Re: Totally agree

.......but most often are judged on.

Exactly.

 

[letsallgetlaid]

Re: Re: Re: Totally agree

Exactly.

Well now that we've solved this. On to the next problem of global importance.

 

[Never]

As a lesbian, I disagree.

 

[Aphrodisiac]

Doritos....

Keep your lesbian self out of my leftist Doritos!

Why do they have multiple Dorito flavors when they all taste the same?

What was the topic again?

All of them taste the same & they all seem to leave your tongue all icky and stuff .. tend not to eat them at all.... but there are times I get a DORITO attack.


Topic

I am what I am ...

 

[Never]

As a lesbian, I don't think we are what we are as much as we are what we are not.

 

[RisiaSkye]

I realize your penchant for acerbic one-liners, Never.

However, if you can put that aside for a moment: care to elaborate?



Addendum to earlier post:
While our identities are defined by the categories of their articulation, they do not comprise our entire self.
So, what you are is who you are. It's just not all you are.


Edited for spelling

 

[Azwed]

No it is just a part of you. It may be a very large part of you, but it only makes up a part of you.

My gf is a good example of this. She is hearing impaired and that makes up a large portion of her self. It is however not all she is. It defines a portion of her life and in some respects restricts what she can do with her life.

It is only a part of her it is not all of her. All of her would include more things then I could ever put into words. Just a brief sketch of her would include her being a fantastic writer, incredible lover, horrible with directions, a calm temper for the most part but with the infrequent bitchy streak.

One thing, no matter how large it is, cannot define you. If it could then it would be bigger then yourself.