Who Am I?

I've finally found something to post.

It's a puzzling question, at least for me, to be asked who I am. I'll start listing you a variety of traits, things I like, but at the end of the day the question "Who Am I?" is haunting. I can't even answer the question "Am I?".

Lately, it's been strikingly obvious that I'm at odds with society as I know it. I say society as I know it, because that's specifically what I was told by someone else. She [this lady] told me that many people get along in the world, making their way, and enjoying their interest in their free time. They were happy overall. The reason I wasn't happy was myself. Me. I. Myself. As it were.

The Buddhist say that this concept of self is one of the things that gets people into trouble. Not going to elaborate much more on that at the moment, because it's been glaringly obvious these past few days that I also need to brush up on Buddhism as well.

What the point of this post is, an introductory post I've been avoiding because I hate trying to say who I am, is that personality is a relative constuct depending on context. And, as I have come to understand, I have put myself into a sub-societal context in which my behaviours aren't abnormal to that particular context, but they aren't normal to the society at large.

The people with whom I align myself weren't the people who fit in with society. The authors- the Virginia Woolfs and Ernest Hemmingways, the Sylvia Plaths and Emily Dickensons and Katherine Mansfields- did not function in their respective societal contexts. The philosophers I admire- the Russells, the the Benthams, etc, so forth- weren't exactly the height of societal functioning. In fact, I think Russell delighted in going against society as much as he could and deemed fit. Even the psychologists- the Freuds and the Skinners- weren't exactly well fitting with society. Society didn't exactly appreciate the Baby Box, nor was Freud greeted with much praise by society when he proposed his psychosexual stages.

Not to say I am a master of anything. I have not had the life experience nor the time to see what I am capable of yet. I haven't learned what I am or can be. "Who am I?" How is someone of my age to know? I do not even know what I am not, which is by far the easier question.

Now to take this understanding and apply it to the stress of job hunting and the stress of being academically evaluated by my betters, that's a lot more tangible, and it's going to take a lot more fortitude. Wish me luck.