Some Self Analysis

`You don't know me.' `Nobody understands me.' These are eternal complaints of the angsty, the ever-present focus on what is different between any two individuals. Sure, people can have different hair color, eye color, skin color. Yes, there are very different facial structures and body types. And absolutely there are different personalities. Differences so severe as night and day. A story I remember from high school social studies, meant to be inspirational, was the story of the two sisters: one was always happy and the other always miserable. As a bit of a social experiment, the parents gave gifts to the two daughters. The miserable one got a brand new car. She complained it wasn't good enough. Not fast enough, not expensive enough, and of course the radio wasn't loud enough. The happy one got a pile of horseshit loaded into her bedroom, on top of all her stuff. Her response? ``With all this horse shit, there's got to be a horse in here somewhere!'' Now of course this story isn't real. And even if it were, the happy girl was sure to have a downer when she finally learned that her parents suck. The point is that the personalities are real; there are people whose baseline level of happiness is simply higher than others. Other facets such as extroversion (which shows up on personality tests) and the kind of thing that catches one's eye (which doesn't) vary wildly as well. My assumption would be that even in all of mankind, there are no two individuals who have identical personalities, but you know what they say about assuming. The question, then, is what is my personality? Who am I?I'll start with the very lowest point there is to make about myself. I have no goals. I have no aspirations. I don't want to be a millionaire, I don't want to drive a fabulous car. I don't want to be the envy of all who see me. I make this point a lot. When I'm feeling down, I think `I had a goal in high school; I wanted to be valedictorian.' I wanted to be valedictorian and I wanted even the path it took to get there: the lonely path of the nerd. But, even back in high school, trouble was brewing in this aspect. At the beginning of every semester/year -- whenever new classes started -- the students were asked to fill out little index cards for their teachers. These had information like `name', `parents' names', `emergency contact phone number', et cetera. It was also common, however, for the teachers to prompt `goals for this class', `goals for school', and `goals for life'. The first two were easy. I wanted an A in the class, and I wanted to be valedictorian. The last one would always defeat me. And so now, after I have completed all goals that I have set for myself, I commonly feel that I am drifting. I've been cast into some current and it is dragging me along. Or, I was skating on ice with great momentum, but slipped and fell on my ass. Now I'm sliding along without any drive of my own, still going in the same direction as I was in high school.

So where do I build from there? The great thing about starting with my lowest views about myself is that the only direction to go is up. I think I'll start with pointing out that the previous paragraph is a blatant lie. It may be convenient to wallow about when I'm miserable anyway, but it is simply a gigantic non-truth. I have goals. I can list a few perhaps: I want, at some point, to be married. I want kids. I want a job of a level where I can respect my co-workers as being intellegent and nice to be around. I want a place I can go when I need to be alone, but I want many places I can go when I need to be with a friend. I want to stand out, but I don't want to stand out any more than anyone else. None of these are very specific. There is nothing here that I can use to say ``Ah ha! So to accomplish this goal I need to do exactly (a), (b), (c).'' But among these are things that make me happy. When I get closer to achieving one, my demeanor becomes slightly more smile-y. When I am farther away, I become more withdrawn.

Having wants and desires is good. Being able to write them down in a list is better. Best of all though, what a person wants out of life is a big part of who they are. Of course, it's not a _public_ part of who you are. For people to know your dreams, they must be close to you. For the rest then, who you are is built more on how you act in public. I unicycle. I take a tool of pride and vanity, a machine of great difficulty, a toy of unparalleled shock value, and I place it between myself and those who may look upon me. It is a wall and a window. I smile at those who say ``Dude that is so cool!'' I answer those who ask ``Is that as easy as you make it look?'' I ignore those who remark to their friends, a little loudly for taste, ``I hate this place because people do things like _that_.'' A unicycle is a great way to remove myself from social situations; I don't have to fall into conversation with an acquaintance just because we happen to be walking the same direction. I'm not obliged to figure out exactly the right way to look at oncoming pedestrian traffic. That's a hard task. You can't just ignore them; there might be a friend among the crowd who warrents a hello. You can't actively search for people you know either, or greet everybody. That's just weird. A solution might be to walk with a friend, deep in conversation. That also removes you from the difficulty of pedestrian traffic. But, I unicycle. I'll wave to you, typically with my first two fingers extended (no particular reason), and then I'll unicycle off.

The unicycle brings to light some interesting things about me. I'm proud, but not vain. Honestly. I'm proud of my ability to do something that most others cannot. I'm proud of this ability that took so many years to learn, and even so many months to really get started, and that I will never stop learning so long as I keep going. I even like it when people are impressed. And, yes, I dislike it when people don't care, or think of me as a showoff. But I don't think I'm owed anything for the time I put into unicycling. I don't want attention as payment for time invested. I'll unicycle because it gets me out of the foot traffic, and it's fun, and when someone does feel the desire to give me attention for it it makes me just a little bit happier than I was the moment before. I'm proud, but not vain. Really? Regarding the unicycle I am anyway. How about my intellect? I'm not proud of it. Perhaps I'm vain. I didn't do anything to deserve my ability to pick up new concepts quickly. I didn't have to practice to have a memory that works even better when I'm being tested than when I'm not. Do I like it when someone says `You're smarter than me'? no! I hate it. I want to be smart. I like being smart. I just don't want to be smarter than somebody else. I want to excel at those things that I've earned the right to excel at -- those things that I've put time and effort and stress into mastering. But do I think I deserve to pass my classes with flying colors, even though I don't put as much effort into them as some others? Damn right I do. It might not make me happy to get an A, not like it used to in high school, but I do tend to feel it as my due. I'm vain. I'm vain when it comes to schooling, and coursework, and things that I'm good at without effort. But, I'm not proud of those things, and I'm not proud of being vain about them.

I'm quiet. I'm also loud. If I don't know anybody present, I'll probably keep my mouth shut. If there's a crowd, and I don't know most of the people, I'll get out of there if I can. I hate crowds. People I don't know make me uncomfortable. People I do know don't make me much more comfortable, but there is a tendancy: when in a group of people, the amount of time that my mouth is open is proportional to how many of them I know and how well I know them. My comments tend to be smart-alec, and bad puns. I like to play devil's advocate. I especially like to say things that are clearly not true, but only if it's sufficiently clear that I'm clearly bullshitting. I speak in a manner that might make people think I just like to hear my own voice, but that cannot be the case, given the limited situations that I speak in that manner. But when it comes to talking, there's one thing I'm good at. It doesn't happen often. If I happen to be talking to someone about a topic I understand well, my words become more forceful. If I'm talking on a topic that's clearly got two sides, and I think one of them is wrong, my words become passionate. If I'm talking to someone who is not informed but thinks I can teach them, my words become insistant. If, instead, that person is well informed but thinks that my opinion might be interesting, my words become proud. I love to talk about physics with a chemist. I like to try explain what an atom is to someone who doesn't quite get it. I enjoy debating global warming with a friend, even if we both argue on the same side. I wish I had that kind of conversation more often. Only very few of my friends do I feel welcome to talk to in that way at any time; I wish there were more.