Identity.
I was with some older folk at the weekend.
A question that comes in a deep existential crisis as you approach mid-life is, “Who am I?”
A lot of times we pretend about who we are. When you are meeting someone for the first time in a romantic liaison, and you date for a while, there is perhaps a lot of pretence, right? Am I wrong?
You want to show your best colours so that you capture the other heart. Its a bit of a peacock show I think. Im not sure if this is a universal truth, but it happened to me some years back, and I found out differences further down the line that I could not live with. And Im scared to make the same mistake again. And Im asking myself now, is there any other realness, are you that person all the time or is this a show that carries on for a while before the curtains drop?
You are/were the best cook, the best listener, the best moon and sunset watcher, you listened/listen to the best music and you had/have an amazing time being the best at everything under the sun. It is/was a beautiful time. Pretending to be the best person.
Things change when reality opens you and when the honeymoon fades. But it doesnt have to, when you know who you are. Be the person that you are, from the start. And dont change. Listen with good intent, love with good intent, talk, solve, keep your promises. Dont let the fun fade.
I detoured a little here to speak about how things change in a relationship. I have to come back to the question of identity. The understanding of self. Which is a long exploration. And I think John Gorman writes about this better than I can. After the journey/roadtrip that I’ve recently been on, to partly explore my identity, speak to older folks and celebrate a matrimony, I found myself introspecting on identity and self a lot.
Back to the question of identity. Im finding that the more I dive into my family history, the more I am understanding myself, and perhaps answering the why I am here question.
But first. There is a song that came out in the 80s, “The Living Years” by Mike and the Mechanics. The video was very sobering and solemn, our TV was black and white then, so the entire thing was saddening. Cemeteries/graves, loss etc. Left a moving imprint in my head for years.
In the song, Mike and the Mechanics say that “every generation blames the one before”, thats the opening line. And that has stayed with me throughout my existence from that youth.
In the melanin life, we are given the burden of improving ourselves from the poverty that we inherited from our parents & ancestors. It becomes our lives imperative to improve/break out of the poverty in our generation and to propel the next into a better pedestal.
We have to build for our kids. Just the same as our parents improved for us, sacrificed everything to get us into good schools. Just so they could break the cycle and such that we were/are to become their retirement plan.
So, Mike and the Mechanics, were speaking from a moment of failure, saying that at that point, the troubled generation blame their failures on their parents, and the previous generations, for not building them up a platform for success.
And so it happens that, when things go wrong, you look for someone to blame, you blame the government, you blame your parents, uchitha impepho emsamu and swear against the black tax. You do it all wrong. You do all the wrong. And you blame your spouse even.
And then things fall apart. Like my mans Chinua Achebe said.
And as I search for myself, within myself, and in scripture, I am discovering all the things that make me who I am, I reflect on understanding self, in the sense of ancestral progression, and in the sense of my identity as a person who wants to never change, but one who seeks personal refinement.
And just as John Gorman writes about humility, curiosity and empathy as being the defining characteristics of a wholesome and loveable person, I can attest that these are characteristics that I aspire to possess and to refine, in myself and to display and show to everyone that I interact with, either in the workplace or in my personal space and community, and in romance. In the living years.
