I used to think of identity as an arrangement. I think of it now as intuition. Let me explain.
A while ago, I had a terrible realization. It came to me of course in Hell (Time Square), alone on a humid August evening. As I was weaving among the frenetic energy of crowded strangers—the worst area at its absolute worst (I petition for Times Square to be it's own island so people stop hating on my beloved home...)—the scariest thought decided to conveniently pop into my head: I don't know who I am. It's one of those things you can't just think and then forget. Especially because the thought hit where it hurts—that's how you know it holds some truth. But, like any Big news, I denied: I've lived as this person for many years, obviously being someone to the world. How could I not know who that was? At the same time, even if I had a sense of self for the world to see, if I didn't have the words for it, how present was I? Then, I began to panic.
I needed to fix the enormous problem I had now created, asap. So I sought answers. I began listing what I knew about myself: I like blueberries, I hate the rain. Long walks on warm days through (quiet) New York neighborhoods comfort me, the beach is nice to me in theory but the sand ruins it—general items like those. It wasn't super meaningful, not enough to make a person. But it provided much needed assurance.
The realization was everything I didn't want to feel: disorienting, illogical, unmanageable. But it was crucial, because it gave me the knowledge that I needed try to figure it out. And that kept me going. It was easier to show up with others when I could talk about this and that podcast, or with myself when I knew enjoyed this or that hobby. Attaching myself to activities and cultural products wasn't an identity, but it provided a point of reflection. It was a start. Culture helps us access ourselves. It's why representation matters. When you realize you're gay, for instance, you need queer models to be accessible. They can't tell you who you are, but they can reflect parts of yourself you repressed or were estranged from in a way that feels safe, exciting, welcoming.
Curating an identity through culture worked for a while, but as I said up top, identity morphed in my mind. Arranging it around interests, ideas, and others brought intentionality. And that's important because finding who you are should be done with thought and care. But identity now feels less curated, more intuitive. Implied in the name, intuitive identity is harder to describe. It's a naturalness, an ease. What does it look like? Less needing to control who I am, more needing to embody it. Allowing for feelings to fuck up my plans. Listening to my body. I'll give another example to provide more concrete color.
I used to have social anxiety. It came from a place of wanting to be liked—who doesn't love validation! But when I was trying to control how I was seen, I wasn't being me. Because as we know, that person wasn't available. They were elsewhere. This is getting pretty philosophical, and perhaps feeling convoluted to you. It's a paradox, right? I wanted people to like a version of myself that was something other than myself. But, of course, showing up inauthentically was less vulnerable—because when you aren't liked, the real you isn't on the line. You are rejected, yes, but it's a rejection of other peoples' (wrong) projection. It hurts less, and I wanted to avoid bad feelings at all costs.
As I started finding my identity, the need for being liked was disappearing. The independence I was gaining came hand-in-hand with presence. For instance, for a while I was uncomfortable with naming my queerness in cis-straight spaces. I didn't know if others were coming with homophobic baggage, which was on my mind because I was coming with it, too. But I now show up in my full queerness, intuitively. And because I love that part of myself, it is accessible—without the obstacle course mindfuck of hesitations, fears, and discomfort it used bring with it.
A great substack I follow called "Ava from Bookbear Express" put this well in her recent letter how can we be the right kind of together?: in/dependence. "Being independent in a healthy way doesn’t require avoidance, it requires self-differentiation: staying yourself in the presence of people who are important to you." Ava makes the astute assertion that we can only be independent when we recognize our need for others (terrifying). But that "need" part is tricky. I think of it as: I cannot look to others to regulate my emotions, but I can look to those with whom I have a mutual love and trust, and ask them to support me where I am struggling. I can say, 'hey, I am currently feeling anxious about this or that change in my life, and I need to know I have your support as I figure it out." It's a reliance that allows for you to hold them without codepending on them.
Ava further quotes Conscious Loving by Gay Hendricks and Kathlyn Hendricks. They describe a client revelation:
"Now I feel a center of light and God-consciousness in me, but I’ve never been able to contact or express it before. Instead, all my thoughts were about how I could manipulate people to give me what I want or how I could get them to like me. I’ve never had a single pure thought before.” This man had made a profound discovery: When you can break through your approval and control programming, there is a natural, organic spiritual essence within you that can be consciously experienced. As long as we try to control ourselves and others, and as long as we strive to get others to like us, that spiritual essence is obscured. When we wake up and start loving ourselves, we claim our divine right.
I am not religious like this man, but I relate to his idea of "programming." Identity is about undoing as much as it is about redoing. On Laverne Cox's podcast, the incredible poet, writer, and activist Alok Vaid-Memon explains how judging oneself breads the projection of judgement onto others. People who don't process their self-inflicted violence see violence everywhere. No where is safe. This makes sense: everyone is only ever in their head all the time, so what's happening there is assumed normative for all. But on the flip side, everyone else is also in their own world of a head. The changing of "programming" means that when you adjust your habits of thought, you adjust your expectation of what others think, and consequently, how you treat them.
Redoing my programming, and subsequently moving from a curated to a natural identity, was so much about finding safety through recognizing my emotions. Feeling it all allows your body to trust that you've got it. It's held. But it's often not as straightforward as: I'm happy, I'm sad. This crystallized for me with a Hidden Brain episode about mixed emotions, ambivalence. Emotions, like actions, feel better when they're decisive: I am excited about this, afraid of that. But having many or contrasting feelings brings less assurance. The psychologist interviewed on the podcast episode, Naomi Rothman, says that society, too, is not supportive of mixed emotions. She points to research showing that in a professional setting, ambivalence make peers less confident in you. If we receive these negative cues from others about our mixed feelings, why would we support it in ourselves? Plus, we like simplicity. Nuance is not simple. But according to Naomi, research also shows that the discomfort of recognizing your mixed emotions is essential to making happy decisions.
We want short-cuts, assurance, the illusion of stability. But decisiveness is a myth. And more importantly: you can change your mind! From my conversations with friends, many need to hear this. You can decide you want to live somewhere and then move. You can share your identity with someone and then tell them, actually it's something else. Small decisions and big decisions. Nothing is ever final.
***
I like to think of identity as a building. When I started out, I was the architect. What does an architect do? Construct, plan, arrange. The building was empty at first, but as I grew, it became filled with life—other people's stories, desires, gains and losses. And likewise, it developed a character of it's own. Think of your favorite building—you have a form in mind, yes? It helps if the architect had fun with the arranging, made it look all snazzy and special. The building isn't just itself, because of the constant influx and outflow and its context around other different buildings. Over time, its presence builds its personality—through its association with design trends, its historical memory, its wear.
The building is solid but engineers design it with room to sway. Movement allows for it to bear its own fragility.
I wish you the most joy in building your own building. It looks pretty as hell (the good hell).
References:
+Ava, bookbear express, substack, https://ava.substack.com.
+Hidden Brain, "The Benefits of Mixed Emotions," https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/the-benefits-of-mixed-emotions/.
+The Laverne Cox Show, "Moving Beyond the Gender Binary w/ ALOK," https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/moving-beyond-the-gender-binary-w-alok/id1547504297?i=1000510584340.
+We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle, "ALOK: What Makes Us Beautiful? What Sets Us Free?," https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/alok-what-makes-us-beautiful-what-makes-us-free/id1564530722?i=1000552537690 (not referenced, but a great Alok listen).
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