Perhaps you do. At the end of the day, it is an irrelevant question. The question we should all ask is....Do i know who i am? And then perhaps you should take it further.... Do i know who i should be? If you start asking yourself that regularly and you compare it with How do people see me? you would be well on your way to be an outstanding human being.
In my case i always knew who i was. It has been speculated that i could well have narcissistic personality disorder..... I certainly have not found it burdensome. If anything my constant inner monologue that promotes me while never ceasing to ridicule others has been a more than capable auto-pilot when the rest of pysche is otherwise engaged. What i lacked was the conviction and surety of myself to simply be what i knew i was. Instead i opted for what at the time seemed like easier options.
It is never easier to be something other than you are. Ever. When you try all you are doing is bending over for the world. And you become a painted target, prone and waiting to be victimized and abused by the predators and parasites that inhabit the earth. And then BAM! next thing you know you are getting socially raped on a daily basis and your life is all kinds of shit falling apart into a well of acid while listening to Shania Twain! And once that happens your life is really up shit creek. Believe me, i know. I was an absolutely total loser during the early years of high school. And not because of who i was, but because of how i acted. I spent far too much time worrying trying to fit in in my own way, too much time worrying about what other people thought(that is, any time at all). Thank fuck i was lucky enough to have a mentor that quite literally told me to shut the fuck up and deal with it. And so from that point i gave about as much thought to other peoples opinions about me as i give to winter olympic sports (it may be a downfall that this dismissal of ideas has now grown to include almost all opinions that don't run with mine). From that point on i stopped trying to fit into society or the box i had been given. It wasn't like i sat down one day and thought "You know what... I am just going to be strange today". It was just a natural progression. As i tested societies boundaries and tolerance i found that you could pretty much anything that didn't brake a law and that our laws don't discriminate against people acting unusual. I wore bad drag to Federal Parliament. If that isn't an example of freedom of expression i don't know what is.
As for do i know who i should be? I am lucky in that too. See i believe it is a trick question. If you really know who you are and have accepted that... Then who else could you be? See people get stuck on this. If someone is unhappy i often ask who they want to be in life. The answer is invariably an occupation like "Promotional Designer for Fuckwit Corp" or some other high and mighty job. A job doesn't determine who you are. Are you a great man because you founded a mulitbillion dollar company? Are you a loser because you are an unemployed bum? No! You founded a great company because you are great, you have no job because you are a loser! Success for most people starts inside. When you get your shit sorted out you generally find other things just start sliding into place. So in knowing who i was from such a young age i knew exactly who i had to be. I had to be me. Unfortunately for a long time i knew i was absolutely failing at that so i tried other things. I think everyone has to get raped a few times. I know i did. I even did some raping.
All of this is what i now come to think of in very simple terms. A phrase that compresses the lessons i have learned in life as well as the theories of my religion. I have started to think of it as the Travis Doctrine.
Without Apology. Without Exception.
So easy and yet so hard. Easy because it is so simple to follow. Just be yourself. So hard because it leaves little room for compromise. Easy enough to be out at work. Hard to let your co-workers know you are a big nelly bottom that just needs good, regular dickings. My counter to that is just to act naturally. If being camp or whatever is unacceptable at your work perhaps you shouldn't be there. And remember that in life we will do things we wouldn't like to be splashed on page 1. Which is fine so long as you never do something you are ashamed of. I have also had people throw questions at me like "But what of killers and pedophiles? Aren't they just being themselves?". My answer to that is that people are more than passions and desires and if someone happens to be nothing but then they are not a human being but an upright beast not worth keeping alive. And while it is every persons inalienable right to express themselves that does not over ride every other persons inalienable right to life without molestation.
And How do people see me? Of course i have said here and other places that you should give no stock in the opinions in others if they are putting you down for being yourself. And that is absolutely true. But a time should come in your life when you have absolutely mastered yourself and thoroughly explored that plateau your personality is. For me the way to get off of that plateau was other people. Other people unwittingly gave me the directions to the trail that continues up Mountain Me. They were my catalyst. I knew who i was and was happy with it...But other people didn't. I didn't give a fuck that they were not happy. But it distressed me that people didn't know me. I realized then that perhaps i wasn't as certain and sure of myself as i thought. And of course i wasn't, there were huge gaps in my life where i was just failing to live up the standard i had set. There were parts now where i was going way over the top, to please other people and i had lost sight of my goals in order to cater for the whims of other people. This is the way life goes. Constantly learning, constantly re-evaluating and constantly striving forward to perfection. You climb that mountain, the peak in sight and when you climb over that last rise you realize this is just another plateau the peak is just THERE! And so off you go.
Some people find that metaphor scary. That life will never be Done. In most cases it is because they don't enjoy it now so horizon of more to come is anathema to them. For me it is an indescribable mix of excitement and impatience.
In answer to this posts subject... I sure know who i am.
Do you?
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