Five years ago today, to the day, I moved out of my fifteen-years-older boyfriend's house and into a rented room by myself at the tender age of 21, almost 22. In retrospect, I see this as the moment I became to truly become a real person. With this move I had begun to assert my independence and self-hood. I began to learn what it was to live by and for oneself.
Looking back, there is so much in front of not-quite-22 year-old me. It's been a slow progression but I think, overall, that it trends upward and my life has become more positive and better for me, the person, every single year.
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When was that moment, for you? The one that you believe defines the break, the essential start, of your self- and adult-hood?
I remember a time part way through college I reflected on the person I was in high school and didn't think I particularly liked that person. I rather expected this, as I was unhappy in high school and felt isolated. I reflected on that and thought that it was an important part of my personal growth and that I had finally "arrived". What was rather unexpected is a few years later I would look back at my college self who had done that reflecting and think the same thing again. I don't know if I want to pin any particular moment where I became a Real person, because I think I'd stop growing if I could say that about myself with absolute conviction. I both dread and anticipate the point a few years down the road where I look at who I am right now and think "I'm glad I'm past that".
Yeah, definitely felt like a person with formed opinions when I started uni at 18. Didn't think I would change too much because I had mostly "arrived" to who I was. I was wrong ;) how do you think it would go if got yourself, your high school self and your college self in a room together?
I'm not there yet. It's supremely frustrating realizing that the dispositions you want to rid yourself of in order to feel more "real" and whole have simply manifested themselves in different ways. If adulthood is being self sufficient and being able to keep yourself alive with a roof over your head, then I'm there. But as for real, that still feels like it's always just past the horizon, things are still up and down and I'm not sure how well I know myself. How does anybody really know themselves? A man is a summons and a challenge.
- Walt Whitman.
I tend to find the opposite which is pretty funny because I figure out who I am when I don't care what others think of me or when I'm not overanalyzing my actions. However if those aren't big problems for somebody I could see how they wouldn't benefit in the same way. I think a lot of people look back at choices they make drunk or high and think no that's not me but really what the hell are we if we aren't our actions. Getting high or drunk doesn't change a person, it just emphasizes traits that already exist. Which in my mind brings them the surface to be processed. I could see how that would work differently for different people though.
So to me, I feel like I have been able to use the experience of not being sober to prevent myself from feeling the true cost of my actions. Like I can tell anybody I love them when I'm drunk because there's no cost to it; the alcohol kills my inhibitions and so the real me, who'd be holding back, nervous about the words and their consequences, is clouded by a me who doesn't have to think about those consequences and therefore can just charge ahead. I agree that we are our actions, not our words. But alcohol makes actions easy which I think gives them less weight. Does it mean more to forgive a former friend who's fought with you when you are drunk, and happy, in the moment, and inclined not to care, or when you're sober and you look at them and you can feel the heft of their past actions? Yes, sometimes I say or do things when drunk that make me realize how I feel about something, and I didn't know before that drunk moment. So I think you can glean insight from your drunk self too. But I think some actions should be hard because in reality they are hard actions. You should feel vulnerable when you tell someone for the first time that you love them, because that is an action of vulnerability. When I'm drunk I don't feel that vulnerability. edit: cc'ing lil because this serves as a sideways follow-up which dovetails a conversation we had many months ago. about five, i think.
I think we basically agree, I think drinking shows us a part of ourselves and sometimes forces us to think about why we can't be that person sober. Or alternatively it seems good enough and we don't bother trying to figure out what's stopping sober us from being for example vulnerable. So part of the process but not the whole thing. Story time ! I had a roommate who wasn't an alcoholic in the way people normally think because instead of needing to drink all the time he just wouldn't stop drinking once he started. The whole reason he did this is because sober him couldn't be vulnerable or show emotions at all. When he would get drunk enough he would be open and cry freely. He would talk about how he felt but if I tried to have the same conversation with him sober it was like I was talking to a different person. It was actually creepy since those moments when he would be open felt like seeing the real him but in the morning it would feel like he was some creepy robot thing. I think in his case it would have been really great if he just didn't drink but at the same time I don't think he ever would have been forced to look at his real self. He could look at the drinking as a step back and a negative event in his life but at the same time I wonder if he didn't drink if he would have ever actually seen himself. I'll never know but from what I know of him I don't think he would have ever let himself see that person. So, basically ya you can get insight from drugs or alcohol but there's multiple paths you can take once sober. You can either say hey I want to be able to do that sober or you can just drink whenever you need to be vulnerable. The second option isn't really becoming real self material though.
Yeah, this is a major problem. Alcohol either reduces or exasperates those issues depending on the environment and how much I've had to drink. Kind of agree with the analysis from _refugee_ on this one as far as the weight of ones action drunk versus sober. Granted, I don't feel love towards anybody right now and haven't in quite some time, and don't think any of my actions have much impact on anyone or even myself. But I think there's a reason drunk actions occur once that activation barrier is lowered. It's a disinclination to yourself, or at least, myself...kind of takes you out of yourself a bit and allows an action or thought to occur that wouldn't otherwise happen (even if it's been on your mind for a while - see: overanalysis). Fuck I've become nihilistic as of late, without even trying.I tend to find the opposite which is pretty funny because I figure out who I am when I don't care what others think of me or when I'm not overanalyzing my actions. However if those aren't big problems for somebody I could see how they wouldn't benefit in the same way.
But, like, what is "yourself" ? It takes you away from your over analyzing and low self esteem but that's not your whole self. That shouldn't be what defines you. To me that's just some shit on your personal shit heap of smelly shit that you have to clear away to get to "yourself". Whatever the fuck that is. That's were I'm at now at least, I might be somewhere else 5 years from now. kind of takes you out of yourself a bit
I've been a less severe of this for most of my life and most of the time don't really feel much of anything. It's kind of dissociative in a way where I realize people come, people go, people live, people die, almost to the point of callousness. Especially towards myself. Story: Recently grabbed a drink with a friend whom I have a bit of history with since moving out here. She explicitly called this out saying "You would be just as happy at home by yourself as you are here with me now". I couldn't tell her she was wrong, because she wasn't. Yaaaaay.The whole reason he did this is because sober him couldn't be vulnerable or show emotions at all. When he would get drunk enough he would be open and cry freely. He would talk about how he felt but if I tried to have the same conversation with him sober it was like I was talking to a different person. It was actually creepy since those moments when he would be open felt like seeing the real him but in the morning it would feel like he was some creepy robot thing.
I had a similar situation with him at one point. I had come back after a long time and we were going out for dinner which he wasn't excited at all for. He hated that he couldn't just be excited because he was to busy with all these worries in his head. I do the same thing to a lesser extent.
I have thought about this conversation a lot more since my last comment. One thing I concluded was, "You can cheat to pass the test, but at the cost of learning the material." Alcohol does allow a person an easy or fast way to resolve a situation, especially if a person's overly inhibited sober. (Anxiety, second-guessing, worrywarts, overthinkers.) I also thought that I think we mostly agree. I thought maybe we are describing flip sides of the same coin, and that maybe what we're saying is this: alcohol does offer an effective short-term fix to a lot of rough patches. But in the long-term it prevents good solutions and allows a person to avoid what they would do better to feel and learn how to handle.
I think where we disagree is just how we view that part of the process. It's tempting to see it as a negative that held us back. Like a short term fix that kept us from really progressing but I don't see it in a negative light. Like for my friend if it weren't for his drinking I don't think he would be where he is now which is in a great place. I could say the drinking held him back from being that person but I think it propelled him forward. It's common to look at every bad choice or wrong turn and see it negatively but those choices help shape us and put us on our path. The other day I realized it was very quiet and the baby gate was unlatched so my neice was probably sneaking off. When I went to get her she glared at me and as soon as I picked her up started wailing. In that moment she was becoming her own person, she knew she wanted to do something and was pushing back against authority that told her not to. We are always becoming our self, every minor thing or bad choice is a part of that process. To me it's a life long process that's in constant motion which nothing can hold us back from. Even if something feels like its holding us back it's really slowly shaping us and starting a fire that pushes us forward. This is a bit of a ramble but I think I got it down right, I just don't think growth is preventable.
The Question --- It's not so much the renting of the room that was the beginning for _refugee_ - it was the moving out of that boyfriend's house. The boyfriend, who is old enough to seem protective - but it's a rare person who is protective without also being controlling. Moving away from whoever or whatever is controlling us (parents, boyfriend, girlfriend, job, school, military, addictions) feels like the beginning of personhood. --- Because when you do that, when you move away from whatever you think is controlling you, then you are recognizing your participation in your own subjugation. --- It's a negotiation that goes on our whole lives as we slip from autonomy to interdependence. --- zebra2 sums it up nicely: --- But it wasn't the essential start of selfhood. Maybe the start, my very first identity-defining, selfhood-enhancing moment was in kindergarten: The teacher said, "Bring your chairs to the big blue circle." We picked up our little chairs and placed them around the circle. During those few minutes of moving and settling, I could see a space across the circle -- a space between the two boys I liked. When the teacher turned her back to go to the blackboard, I picked up my chair and scooted across the circle. I could change my surroundings to improve my social currency. I could opt for a better position. --- Note: it was easier then to pick up a chair and move. Years go by and I need to change my surroundings, over and over, dragging a whole lot more stuff behind me. --- Years more go by and I'm shedding all that stuff, becoming lighter and lighter, eventually floating away altogether.When was that moment, for you? The one that you believe defines the break, the essential start, of your self- and adult-hood?
I had a super grown-up moment when I bought a fridge.
I bought a fridge recently too. It's a nice feeling.
I don't know, maybe it's happening right now? I think it will be easier to tell with a bit of hindsight later. Moving out of the parent's and figuring out how I spend my time certainly was (and still is) transformative. Things like deciding to sign up to a gym, or figuring out my "go to" recipes. I actually had a weird grown up moment today having tea with my friend (that now lives in England and is visiting), at my apartment, on the patio we built with my boyfriend and his family. She was telling me how she stated making peanut butter and granola bars herself. And then started telling me how. The kind of conversations I used to find painstakingly boring as a kid and was wondering why can't grown ups talk about more interesting stuff than give each other tips on how to clean more efficiently. But I was interested! It felt weird. It felt kind of like the day I realized I don't like chocolate anymore.
Maybe my first speeding ticket? (I was 14, no driver's license, no insurance. Whoops) Maybe my first hospital Stay that I was conscious of what I was in for and why I was there? (11) The first time I paid taxes? (13) The first time I signed a loan without parents involved? (18, car loan) Signing the lease on an apartment for the first time? (Also 18) What do all those have in common? Not touching on the whole philosophical component and only focusing on the real, I became a real person when people not my family started to pay attention to me. For most of us, that is going to be the mundane life events of driving, paying bills, signing paperwork. Some of us that will be when we meet a significant other. Or get that job where you interact with people you never met before. Or win a prize that puts you in a news article. Or pull a "hold my beer and watch this" and end up in the news. When do you begin become a real person? For me, that answer is when your life's accomplishments start to merit attention.When Did You Begin To Become A Real Person?
It's 3:35 AM where I am right now, and this thread has organized and made love to a few thoughts I've had in my head lately. Without going into it, I'm teary eyed and grateful. Optimistic. Why not tomorrow?
That moment happened, for me, the year before my master's degree. that school year was the first in six years that hadn't had a teacher. Because I wasn't a performance major - just a general music major - I didn't have any credits of individual lessons left. I knew I wanted to pursue a master's degree, but that meant that I was going to have to prepare on my own. No teacher, no advice, no net. Just me, alone in the spare bedroom getting myself to a level where I could apply to universities. I developed a deep love of technical exercises. Not "etudes", which are exercises disguised in music, but dry, unapologetically dull technical exercises. I still do them whenever I have time for an extended warm up. And I got in. All by myself. It was a huge validation for me after 2 and a half years of people beating me down, being at the back of the section. Felt good.
I think I became Real when I started thinking about myself. In high school I wasn't very popular, and my family moved so much that I never developed close friendships. I was very curious about other people though, and that isolation meant I thought a lot about what other people were like and what they did and how they lived, but I didn't think very much about myself - specifically, I didn't think about how I thought about things, which is what I mean when I say "thinking about myself". Once I became meta-cognizant, which happened sometime in early college, I realized I could succeed in ways I'd previously only thought others could. There was a lot of thinking ramping up to that in high school (apostatized fundamentalist Evangelical Christianity around 15, a high school sophomore), but I think I could pretty firmly pin that swap of meta-cognition during university's second semester first-year. Interestingly at the same time, I declared for my program, was accepted, and started genuinely engaging academically for the first time ever. I've become more Real since then, but that's how/when it first started.
I turned 34 a couple days ago. I'm now officially older than Jesus. I think more so than any other birthday i found that transition amusing. My Jesus year was one of transition, as it should be. Didn't exactly go into the desert, but certainly navigated uncharted territory. So to answer your question, I thought I was a person from the time I can remember, and this is difficult for a child. But I feel like I've now crossed an invisible line that demarcates something, but I don't know what.