Random Musings

I remember this conversation I once had with Rachel in which she stated that she was "scared for [her] soul." Her concern was not theological in nature, but rather, she was worried that she was losing her sense of self; what was at risk was her personal identity and how she viewed hers place in the world. At the time, I found it difficult to understand why someone who was in her early twenties would occupy herself with an existential crisis. I think I understand now though. In a couple of weeks i'll be seven months out of college, and there's definitely something to be said about trying to figure out who you are. It became easy (at least for me) to develop a sense of self and personal identity while in college. After all, the institution is structured in a manner where your choices--what classes you take, who you become friends with, the extracurriculars that you participate in, etc.-- end up defining you a a person, both to others and to yourself. I knew who I was.
While I can't fully claim that I don't know who I am anymore, alot of the things that helped flesh out my character are no longer with me. I must confess there have been moments where I've been terrified that who I was in college was nothing but a farce-- a caricature of a preposterous pseudo-intellectual who talked about the politics of who-knows-what--and to a certain extent, yeah I was that guy. But I was only a product of my environment. Did I talk of such heavy philosophical things because I was forced to? Did I regurtitate Barthe's argument on myth-making because I truly believed it or because it was something to do? With that environment gone, I find myself somewhat worried that all the semi-coherent and smart things I said were someone else's words. So a new task is at hand; for my own sake, I am going to use this space to figure out what it is I believe in, what my real convictions are. In a sense, I will have to carve a new identity out of the woodwork. I can't say that I'm not overwhelmed, but I find such an endeavor exciting.