I think that we have three core identities and only one of them is true.
Who you think I am.
Who I think I am.
Who I think you think I am.
For the longest time I wasn't really armed with those words, just a vague concept of identity. I believe that our identity isn't something that exists within us, but is (as Jimmy Carr put it) dispersed. I've long held this belief that every group or individual experiences different facets of who we are. Our identities live with them. Ludalx gave me the three core identities concept in the beginning of that video, which it turns out is a quote by Charles Horton Cooley regarding the looking glass self, the concept that we view ourselves through the lenses of other's reactions to us in social situations.
At this point you may be saying "that's cool and all but what the hell does this have to do with consistency?" Well, I think we kind of unify those identities over time, given consistency and communication. Who we are doesn't just rest in what we say, but also what we do: to some people I'm still a photographer, to many of my family members I'm still a guitarist, to my partners I'm a hell of a cook, to my nephew I'm a gamer. There are people who see me consistently at the gym who know me as a gym guy, my coworkers know me as the networking guy.
Part of this feeds into the whole concept behind this blog: I am all of those guys, not at all times, each hobby takes different precedence in my life, but those are all a part of the whole. I still have the skills I've learned from each hobby. If a version of me stops showing up for a while, that doesn't mean it isn't latent inside of me, it just isn't active currently. We can only nurture so much day to day before we experience burnout. There's no one in my life in the city that sees me as the photography guy, and no one from the last few years in rural Oklahoma who sees me as the gym guy, neither of those things showed up to them.
The cost of consistency, ultimately, is shifting the perceptions other people have of you, and through them shifting your perception of yourself. The risk of that cost is burnout if you juggle too much; part of the reason I'm not the photography guy, or the miniature painter in my urban life is because I juggled every hobby I could, monetizing many of them, just to barely keep from drowning when things were hard. I burned all of my passion and interest in these things in a way that has been difficult to recover from.
There's also a different consistency in my life here: peace. It has been wonderful, but at the same time as taken a serious and unexpected toll. I lived for so long just barely making it that having this peace and quiet consistently has me feeling like something should be happening. I am learning to live with this new normal, leaning to accept that my identity is different to different people, how it changes and shifts as they see different facets of me. One of my partners said I'm different than the "I'm hot and I know it" Danny she met, but it was still false bravado I thought I needed to get through life, with the changes happening I was able to put that down and sit deeply in what I had going on. I'm having to relearn to love myself and be kind, because before this it was a front to keep the world from getting too far in when I had much too much going on.
I'm consolidating. I'm working to put together who I think I am, who you think I am, and who I think you think I am. It's slow progress, but it's a worthy pursuit.
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