February feels like spring – like a new beginning, because I think my breakdown (refer to previous blog post) might have sparked the beginning of a new perspective.
I left Pittsburgh for winter break on this self-prescribed mission to connect with myself, and figure out what I want to do next year. Time alone for personal reflection sounded exactly like what I needed to figure myself out… but in all honesty, I think I ended up feeling more lost and more confused than when I started the process. So, in the midst of my confusion, I found it cathartic to vomit my feelings all over my blog. And in the following couple of weeks, a series of conversations and events occurred (oh, the universe!) that have channeled my thoughts in a bit of a different direction. So, let me tell you what happened:
When I first got back to Pittsburgh, my friend and I went to eat gyros (my first experience eating at the CMU trucks, something I felt I needed to do before graduating), and he mentioned that he had read my latest post. Oh god, I thought. I was still feeling self-conscious about my public display of self-doubt, and after clicking “Publish Post,” I almost wished I hadn’t... But I did, and there was no going back, so I said, “Oh yeah, what did you think?” And he said something to the effect of, “Labels are the problem”. I thought about this for a moment, and he continued, “I really hate when people say they’re a vegetarian. No! You eat a vegetarian diet.” I could see where he was going… “I study materials science and engineering, I’m not a material scientist.” Maybe this distinction seems obvious, but it felt great to hear someone articulate this idea out loud. Maybe this societal tendency to tag ourselves with label upon label upon label (I’m an engineer, I’m straight, I’m a Jew, I’m a Mac person) – to define ourselves by the things we do, or the things we believe, or the things we like – is at the root of my self-doubt.
If I am what I do (or believe, or like, or…), then what happens when I wake up one day and decide, “Actually, I don’t really know if I am passionate about civil engineering.” Such a thought would have the result of effectively stripping me of a concrete definition of myself. And then, completely naked, I’m left to wonder: “OMG, Who am I?! I don’t even know anymore!” The funny thing is that, regardless of what I am studying in school, or what I want to do with my life, I am and always will be ME: Erica Spiritos… which leads me to the second in this series of events.
The other day I was fiddling around on Facebook, and a little chat window popped up on my screen – a friend from high school who I hadn’t spoken to in four years wanted to say that he had read my latest blog post, and was grappling with some of the same questions. (As a side note, I think if we allowed ourselves more opportunities to have these kinds of discussions, I/we might not feel so alone. In fact, I’ve started to realize that most people are dealing with these issues). So anyway, we started talking about how so often, we feel defined by our major or our job. At school, for example, “What’s your major?” always seems to be one of the first questions asked in a conversation with a new acquaintance. And in a lot of ways, this piece of information is revealing: our major dictates how we spend our day (which classes we take), the people with whom we spend it (other kids in our department), what we think about (issues relevant to our field of study) and possibly what we hope to do in the future (typical career paths).
All of these things are consuming, and so they are easy to mistake as defining. But maybe they’re not. Maybe this whole concept of ‘who we are’ is the root of our tree, and ‘what we do’ is just one branch, one manifestation of who we are – but not who we are. What lies above the surface (the tree and all its foliage and flower) is what we present of ourselves to the world: what we do, what we eat, how we dress, with whom we interact. Underground, the roots are tangled and complex, just like this elusive definition of self. They are messy, but they are what allow the tree to stand strong and tall during stormy weather. Okay, I know I am being a total hippie, but it makes sense in my head: everything (the roots and the tree; who we are and what we do) is connected, but in order to feel complete, we have to grow down into the Earth as much as we need to reach toward the sky.
A friend of mine was in a class or something where people had to go around introducing themselves with the standard "name, where you're from, what do you do" response. Everyone said their name, hometown, and job, until Joy, who said her interests instead of her job. I loved that because she, like you and I, didn't want to define herself with her job! Great post, I especially liked the tree metaphor about how we're rooted in a complex definition of who we are.
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