Who are you?
Just who do you think you are? How do you define yourself? By the job you do? By your personal history? By your achievements? Do you define yourself as a success or as a failure? Do you see yourself as empowered or as a victim? How does your definition of yourself affect your life and can changing one change the other?
There are things I tend not to define myself by. I don’t define myself by my gender, by my class or background, by my job or profession or by my achievements - probably because I honestly don’t think I’ve achieved very much! What I do define myself by is my ideas and my beliefs. What I believe is basically who I am and where I stand.
I would take no offence if you called me a Liberal – though I know it means different things to different people. I would even take no great offence at being called a socialist just so long as you didn’t associate me with Tony Blair and so-called ‘New Labour’.
Funnily (as an aside for a moment) for a while at University one of my lecturers called me ‘Comrade’ in a seemingly derogatory fashion. After he had used the word a few times I asked him what he meant by it. He said “Well, you are a Communist aren’t you?” I gave out a hearty laugh and said “Hardly. They’re FAR too Right Wing for me.” I’m still not sure how he took that
Anyway…. Those of you who have read some of my previous postings know that I am an atheist. This is one of my core values and my core ‘beliefs’, it is fairly basic to who I am. I am also a vegetarian (for about 7 years now) and am unlikely to eat meat ever again. I am an Egalitarian. I am a Republican too… I’m guessing that my readers from across the great pond may have taken a sharp intake of breath when I mentioned Republicanism. But fear not, it’s not what you may be thinking. What I mean is that I’m in favour of the UK becoming a Republic rather than the Constitutional Monarchy we apparently are.
I am probably a great deal more than I have already alluded too above but I think that I’ve hit at least some of the highlights – and it’s certainly enough to be getting on with.
So, it only remains to ask: Who are you?
About Me
- CyberKitten
- I have a burning need to know stuff and I love asking awkward questions.
4 comments:
I am a fatherly, grandfatherly, WASPy (white anglo-saxon protestant), pragmatic, athiestic carnivorous progressive.
and outdoorsey canoeist.
I am the Queen of the Crazies :-)
cq
CK said: "There are things I tend not to define myself by. I don’t define myself by my gender, by my class or background, by my job or profession or by my achievements - probably because I honestly don’t think I’ve achieved very much! What I do define myself by is my ideas and my beliefs. What I believe is basically who I am and where I stand."
Hmmm, I do identify myself by my gender because it's so integral to my other definitions and why I am who I am, mom, sister, partner, liberal feminist. I don't id myself by my job or accomplishments, it's uncomfortable. Even though I have gone way beyond the white trash label I grew up with, have 4 degrees and am working in a "professional" field, inside, I'm still that little girl in the big family whose parents were carnies and who wasn't allowed to play with the neighborhood kids because I wasn't good enough. I still feel connected to my upbringing and still feel for the poor, illiterate and unrepresented. I am political because I've lived that other life that the U.S. government still refuses to acknowledge is not only out there, but growing rapidly. I am my beliefs, my background, my genetic makeup and my aspirations. I became educated to learn how the system works and figure out how to change it, politics is down the road for me, but I'll probably never get elected being so far left as I am.
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