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I've been thinking about this for a long time, and I've come to the conclusion that I don't know who I'll become, but I do know who I am now--I am who I used to be. Because of that, I'm inclined to believe that who I used to be, who I am now, is who I will one day become.
Okay, I'll step back.
Most of you didn't know me when I was younger. (For consistency's sake I'm defining younger as 8th grade and before.) Or you knew me, but because I was highly anti-social and selective about who I talked to, you didn't really know me well. Who I was in middle school and in lower school was...well, a nerd, for lack of a better word! I was interested in anything relating to history, geography, writing and to some extent language, though that's a bit too abstract for a younger person to really get, I think. My interests were almost always in Europe, which really isn't "allowed" nowadays. This could have something to do with being a very fast, voracious and curious reader, but I've wanted to learn Finnish since the age of nine, been in love with Holland since the age of twelve, and welll...just have always loved Scandinavia and medieval Europe; I really don't know why. In middle school I discovered my passion for maps and would page through our massive National Geographic atlas for hours, finding Svalbard and Tonga and the Falkland Islands and other little isolated places I had never known existed.
Generally, the more interested I am in things, the more creative I get as a whole. In middle school I churned out pages and pages of stuff that even at the time I thought was utter crap. But it felt good to write and develop complex backstories for characters and bizzare inside jokes with myself that don't make sense to me anymore. It felt good to look at maps and learn about the world, it felt good to be able to try to distinguish Danish from Norwegian, it felt good to learn about the Dutch artists of the 17th century. For so many reasons our culture has been turned away from academics, and this has made it hard for people to understand that I genuinely enjoy learning about these things and thinking about them, and that I always have.
The "college process" was god-awful in so many ways, but for me, it had its uses. I realize now that writing countless essays about where I'd fit and why forced me to think about myself and come back to the creative, interested person I used to be. I started trying to improve my writing (and write more) this year, I started playing the piano more seriously, I've tried to write songs, I've realized that the amazing resources of the internet will help me learn all the ten million foreign languages I've always wanted to learn. I think I've finally removed myself from the awful mental stagnance that was 9th and 10th grade. I don't know who I was then, or what I was doing, but I don't think I was acting like the person I've always thought I was. I look at myself now and I see my 7th grade self, just a little older.
Yet I feel a bit uncomfortable making statements like this because you never really know how much you're going to change. Maybe in two years I'll realize I've wanted to be a physicist my whole life. Well, nothing that extreme, but it's impossible to regard the future with certainty. Still, I feel comfortable with who I think I am. This then makes me uncomfortable. Honestly, I don't know anyone who's interested in stuff I'm interested in; the only people I've found have been wayyyy too weird. (I like to think I keep one foot in the normal pool. Or maybe a few toes.) So it bothers me that people are going to think I'm some crazy Nazi freak because I'm more interested in Germanic & Scandinavian cultures than Japanese or Chinese cultures. Or that my interests are just plain weird because they're not common amongst teenagers. I know I seem so over-the-top, but I always do. That makes it hard for me to distinguish passing obsessions from things that I think genuinely interest me. Or maybe--the more I think about myself, the more confusing everything becomes--maybe all these "obsessions" (with things--people are a different story! But we're all obsessed with people) are actually just me really being interested in almost everything but not knowing what to do about it all.
This might be the most personal thing I've ever written on my LJ, and this is the kind of stuff I could go on and on about for hours. I'll stop now because I need to think more about this. But I'll use my Danish flag icon just because it'll go amusingly well with the entry.
Oh, and I also want to know why the bloody hell I write like I'm a stuffy old man. It's kind of an aggravatingly bad habit.
Okay, I'll step back.
Most of you didn't know me when I was younger. (For consistency's sake I'm defining younger as 8th grade and before.) Or you knew me, but because I was highly anti-social and selective about who I talked to, you didn't really know me well. Who I was in middle school and in lower school was...well, a nerd, for lack of a better word! I was interested in anything relating to history, geography, writing and to some extent language, though that's a bit too abstract for a younger person to really get, I think. My interests were almost always in Europe, which really isn't "allowed" nowadays. This could have something to do with being a very fast, voracious and curious reader, but I've wanted to learn Finnish since the age of nine, been in love with Holland since the age of twelve, and welll...just have always loved Scandinavia and medieval Europe; I really don't know why. In middle school I discovered my passion for maps and would page through our massive National Geographic atlas for hours, finding Svalbard and Tonga and the Falkland Islands and other little isolated places I had never known existed.
Generally, the more interested I am in things, the more creative I get as a whole. In middle school I churned out pages and pages of stuff that even at the time I thought was utter crap. But it felt good to write and develop complex backstories for characters and bizzare inside jokes with myself that don't make sense to me anymore. It felt good to look at maps and learn about the world, it felt good to be able to try to distinguish Danish from Norwegian, it felt good to learn about the Dutch artists of the 17th century. For so many reasons our culture has been turned away from academics, and this has made it hard for people to understand that I genuinely enjoy learning about these things and thinking about them, and that I always have.
The "college process" was god-awful in so many ways, but for me, it had its uses. I realize now that writing countless essays about where I'd fit and why forced me to think about myself and come back to the creative, interested person I used to be. I started trying to improve my writing (and write more) this year, I started playing the piano more seriously, I've tried to write songs, I've realized that the amazing resources of the internet will help me learn all the ten million foreign languages I've always wanted to learn. I think I've finally removed myself from the awful mental stagnance that was 9th and 10th grade. I don't know who I was then, or what I was doing, but I don't think I was acting like the person I've always thought I was. I look at myself now and I see my 7th grade self, just a little older.
Yet I feel a bit uncomfortable making statements like this because you never really know how much you're going to change. Maybe in two years I'll realize I've wanted to be a physicist my whole life. Well, nothing that extreme, but it's impossible to regard the future with certainty. Still, I feel comfortable with who I think I am. This then makes me uncomfortable. Honestly, I don't know anyone who's interested in stuff I'm interested in; the only people I've found have been wayyyy too weird. (I like to think I keep one foot in the normal pool. Or maybe a few toes.) So it bothers me that people are going to think I'm some crazy Nazi freak because I'm more interested in Germanic & Scandinavian cultures than Japanese or Chinese cultures. Or that my interests are just plain weird because they're not common amongst teenagers. I know I seem so over-the-top, but I always do. That makes it hard for me to distinguish passing obsessions from things that I think genuinely interest me. Or maybe--the more I think about myself, the more confusing everything becomes--maybe all these "obsessions" (with things--people are a different story! But we're all obsessed with people) are actually just me really being interested in almost everything but not knowing what to do about it all.
This might be the most personal thing I've ever written on my LJ, and this is the kind of stuff I could go on and on about for hours. I'll stop now because I need to think more about this. But I'll use my Danish flag icon just because it'll go amusingly well with the entry.
Oh, and I also want to know why the bloody hell I write like I'm a stuffy old man. It's kind of an aggravatingly bad habit.
