My dad used to wear this tacky shirt around that said "Still Perfect After All These Years" on the front. What's tackier still is that I may have unwittingly adopted this as a personal philosophy.
Following an unlikely thread lead me back to the Friendster account I forgot I still had. It stands, along with my 2002-2006 livejournal, unedited, as a monument to age 18. Yes, that's Amelie you see under "favorite movies." Cringe along with me.
The worst part: my friendster is not really the relic I think it should be after nearly 5 years. I mean, remove about 5 of the bands, The Bell Jar, the highly affected side ponytail, and you've got a reasonable facsimile of Current Me. I consider it a great injustice that I have not become monumentally cooler since then!
And yet, I believe that taking the gradual (natural?) approach to identity building is more respectable than the wild and desperate taking up of (and rapid abandonment of) pre-made and readily available identities. The person who can shift from bro to ska kid to juggalo to radical vegan bike punk to Buddhist nudist every 6 months bewilders the hell out of me.
Of course, what I'm calling a commitment to authenticity could also be called stubbornness or unwillingness to try things. It is possible that I have changed too little. After all, I'm here in my childhood bedroom again, which is hardly a Madonna-style reinvention of myself. I've made gradual, minuscule "improvements." I've traded friendster for myspace, myspace for facebook, and livejournal for this blog; I'm still erecting internet monuments to myself. Despite the fact that one of them emphasizes what I feel to be the uniqueness imbued to me by a steady diet of grandparent-friendly music as a teen, I am still a product of our times. What's more, I am still well represented by my friendster account. Dammit.
1 comment:
god this one is great.
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