Identity

Humanity shares the need for a sense of identity.
Above is a collection of roles, definitions, groups I identify with. Some are certain, unequivocal roles and some are more subjective and judged by myself. 

So why is there this need for identity? Why do we spend so much of our time answering quizzes to identify our personality type, our values, or what type of chocolate bar we would be?

Well, whilst sporting a suitable pair of tortoiseshell geeky glasses, I will share some information about the topic with you.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

• First of all, identity is defined as:

identity is the conception, qualities, beliefs, and expressions that make a person (self-identity) or group (such as national identity and cultural identity) different from others

• Maslow's hierarchy of needs describes the pattern of motivations that humans generally move through. It begins with the basic human needs such as health, food and sleep and progresses to needs concerning the person and their sense of self. A sense of identity is integral to these upper three levels
• The formation of identity occurs from a young age. Young children typically cling to a single teddy bear or doll, through which they know their own identity (I am not my teddy). When this ‘transition object,’ as psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott called it, is removed, a part of their identity is lost, causing distress and tears. This pattern continues through our lives as we identify with our possessions and the things around us and feel bad when they are changed or lost.
• We are born into a world without understanding who we are and where we belong in the world. Striving for a sense of identity (whether individual or group identity) gives us a sense of who we are and what our purposes are
• Our sense of identity should be able to adapt as we learn new things and encounter new situations which challenge what we believe we associate ourselves with. Depression is often caused by losing this sense of identity, as people who suffer from depression have nothing to rely on to give them a sense of pride or a feeling of belonging

Yo-Yo Ma

If I were to listen to one piece of music for the rest of my life it would be Yo-Yo Ma playing Elgar's Cello Concerto. Since first hearing it a few weeks ago, I have listened to it perhaps 20 or 30 times and the musicality he plays with still leaves me completely in awe. The emotion in these long and lyrical lines is beyond my comprehension and the pizz moving into the second movement sends shivers down my spine. I honestly cannot imagine how any single person would not be on the verge of tears in response to this performance - whether you appreciate classical music or not, his playing is a universal language that communicates passion beyond belief.

Inspiration

I love writing. I love being trapped in the emotions of another persona. I love describing a scene and watching the blank canvas come to life with vibrant colours. I love using what I love and who I love to shape entire worlds of fantasy.

I have always wanted to be an author. By looking through my old notebooks, you would find pages of hurried, unappetising lines of scrawled handwriting which appear unloved and perfunctory. But really they are precious. Inside these notebooks are a collection of passing thoughts I have, floating across my consciousness, soon to disappear into the dark crevices where the lost and forgotten are left to decay and perish. So I grasp them, capture them into single lines of scrawl, order them, reorder them, forget about them, find them again, blow off the dust, admire their creativity, despise their disorderly nature, let the dust settle again. And their they are abandoned until I find inspiration once more. Then the feathered quill is dipped in ink and I feel shudders, a consequence of not only the screeching nature of nib on fresh paper, but also because of the tingling sense of excitement a new idea brings me.

So how do I acquire such inspiration?

• Music. Music can conjure up such a variety of emotions, and these emotions can differ between different people and when in different situations. The inspiration for the fairly lights accompanying this blog post? The introduction to The Blind Leaving the Blind Mvt 3 by Punch Brothers. The intricate plucking reminds me of the serene flickering of fairy lights. Spiro's We Will Be Absorbed makes me think of journeys to an unknown place. Or perhaps a nostalgic visit to the house you grew up in, and suddenly all the memories come flooding back. Or maybe a desperately sad goodbye full of tears and smiles. Instrumental music is often best as it means your brain is not confined to the restrictions of lyrics.
• Pictures. Photos. Paintings. Sketches. A scenery which I can describe has the possibility of inspiring an entire story. The setting sky, the rising sun, the glittering stars all create new worlds where events can unfold.
• Poems. The poetic language used to describe emotions, seasons and worlds in poetry is so compelling and poignant. My favourite piece of creative writing I have ever produced was inspired by the poem 'The Lake Isle of Innisfree', a beautiful poem describing a utopian land where Yeats wanted to escape to. This is also the moment where listening to music with lyrics is perhaps a good idea, as there are so many songs with beautiful and enchanting words. Bob Dylan's 'Simple Twist of Fate' is the inspiration for the novel I have been writing on-and-off for a couple of years.
• Unusual words. Sometimes finding out new words stimulates new ideas. The other day I discovered the word 'crenellations' - which are the battlements of a castle - which inspired hundreds of ideas of a very gothic nature. Another word I love is compunction - a piercing sense of remorse. The definition is not from a dictionary, but instead from my English teacher and I prefer it endlessly. It describes the word with so much more intensity than 'a feeling of guilt or moral scruple that prevents or follows the doing of something bad' and it inspires a much more powerful emotional response.
• Theology. I find theology really fascinating. My stories are usually quite philosophical-esque, with themes of death, the afterlife, and the meaning of life often being threaded within the storyline. I especially love learning about classical theology - the Ancient Greek and Roman Gods - and reading the myths. I find them so interesting and the significance of the morality surrounding each one often inspires the philosophical ideas which features in my stories.
• News articles. I love reading thrillers, and one day I would love to write one so whenever I find an interesting headline or unsolved mystery I write it down to use a stimulus. This way, I have an intriguing story which is also plausible.

Once you begin looking at the world from new perspectives, you have an infinite number of ways to become inspired.

Light and Gold

Eric Whitacre's music is beautifully chilling. Whether singing or listening to his pieces, you cannot help but be carried into a state of transcendence by his spine-tingling cluster chords and eerie soprano lines. His music shimmers with ethereal majesty and beauty.
I have had the privilege of singing four of his pieces: 'Sleep', 'With a Lily in Your Hand', 'Lux Arumque' and 'Seal Lullaby' and although challenging, they are some of the most rewarding pieces to learn as you are faced with total perfection once they are mastered. 

The two pieces below are the most beautifully scintillating compositions of his, and so soothing to listen to.

                 

                 

Colourless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously

So, we've made our way to linguistics. It was only a matter of time, really. Anyone who knows me well will know that it would have taken a lot of self-restraint to wait this long to write this blog post, since I rave about languages and linguistics on virtually a daily basis. It is my absolute greatest passion. 

Linguistics is the study of language - how we speak, how we acquire language, how languages evolve, what languages are comprised of, how languages are related, how language and thought are linked... and it is truly fascinating.
It seems to combine everything I love: languages, history, maths and logic, psychology, philosophy, anthropology, sociology, being analytical, essay-writing... and it is where my interests lie above anything else.
Here is a list of some of the interesting things that linguistics is concerned with:

• There is a theory called 'Linguistic relativity' or 'Sapir-Whorfianism' which states that language is related to thought, and can actually affect the way we think. For example, Daniel Everett did a study on the Pirahã language (an Amazonian language) and discovered that they have no words for certain colours and certain numbers, the latter resulting in them finding it difficult to understand subtraction as they have no way of expressing it - their language limits them. Almost like 'Newspeak' in George Orwell's '1984', this theory suggests that the range of vocabulary (lexicon) in a language limits our thought and makes people who speak different languages think in different ways
• Virtually every language across Europe and Asia evolved from a language called Proto-Indo-European. The earliest language that evolved from here that is still alive is Albanian, with Sanskrit and Greek following closely. You can also gauge from the diagram that there have been 5 distinct periods of language in England - England before English, Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English and Present Day English - and that the English language has roots from Latin (after the Roman invasion), Germanic languages (from the Saxon, Jute and Angle invasions) and French (after the Norman invasion)
• There are a few languages that do not share the common ancestor of 'Proto-Indo-European', most notably Basque. These languages are called 'Pre-Indo-European' languages. The survival of Basque is very curious, as it is spoken by so few people and has no known ancestor, and consequently it has quite a high risk of linguicide within the next few years
• When villages with different languages trade with one another, they often create a new language called a 'Pidgin' so they can communicate. When the next generation starts acquiring this language, it becomes a stable natural language called a 'Creole' with a system of grammar. These children have not been taught the grammar of the pidgin - in fact the grammar for a pidgin is simplified anyway - instead they effectively create their own language. Pidgins and Creoles are used as evidence for the Chomskian theory that all humans have an innate ability to learn grammar, called Universal Grammar. He believes that the creoles are created because linguistic ability manifests itself without being taught.
• Due to the influence of the internet, many languages are picking up a large number of English words and in effect becoming hybrid languages. Examples include Denglisch (the combination of German and English), Franglais (French and English) and Hinglish (Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi and English)

Ode to Autumn

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease;
For Summer has o'erbrimm'd their clammy cells.

John Keats beautifully encapsulates the mood of Autumn in his words. He continues with mention of the 'cyder-press', 'twined flowers', and 'gathering swallows' who twitter in the sky. Without mentioning colour, he seems to paint my mind with the burgundys, mustards and olive greens I associate with Autumn in such a masterful way and even more remarkably he is able to evoke an intense sensuous explosion of the delicate smell of cinnamon and pumpkin and spiced apple and the sound of shrill birds and crunching leaves underfoot and the feeling of a harsh wind against ruddied cheeks and the scudding of clouds against a sky of blues and pinks and the warmth of watching it rain out of the window with just a few mere observations of his natural surroundings.

I love Autumn, and with today marking the season's dawning, I feel I am now allowed to wear huge baggy sweaters and drink cocoa and wrap my room in owl fairy lights. Autumn means harvest and Halloween and cornucopias and fireworks and sanguine hues of red and white and green amongst the golds and browns and russets. And before it becomes bitter and bleak, Autumn means savouring these last glimpses of sunlight while we can.

Are You Proud of What You've Become?

I think we all evolve as people. We all create new versions of ourselves constantly - maybe to fit in with a new group of friends, maybe when beginning a new path in life like university or a new job, or maybe just to become more comfortable and confident within ourselves. And the strangest thing about it is that - unless you want to dramatically reinvent yourself - we do it all completely subconsciously. One day you may begin to listen to a new style of music, another day you may pick out a dress that doesn't adhere to your normal style, and then all of a sudden you look back at an old version of yourself and realise you identify so little with
this person that you may as well be two different people.

Recently I've noticed a change in myself. Some people may just call this maturity - changing from a ditsy teenager to a young woman - but I think it's more like that I've found the ground that I'm comfortable on and I've settled on it. Yes, my personality will probably still change as I meet new people and travel down new paths of life, but I feel like I really know who I want to be now and I feel much more comfortable within myself. I am enjoying watching myself become this person.

When I first joined secondary school, I was desperate to fit in. I didn't necessarily wish to be popular, but I wanted to be liked and to establish long-lasting friendships. I didn't want to be the strange lonely girl I had become in my final year of primary school. But in order to fit in, I became somebody I really don't identify with now. I listened to Capital FM, became obsessed with Glee and began wearing make up to school just so I could be 'cool' and 'fit in'. I don't think I've done any of these things now for over 4 years and to be honest, I'm glad. Trying to be someone I wasn't just to be liked seems like such an immature thing to do now and I know I will never tread down that dark path again. But, on the other hand, I am also glad that I did go through this phase because it has made me aware of who I'm not and has contributed to my discovery of who I am. Never has the phrase 'You learn from your mistakes' applied so drastically to my life than now.

There have been a number of things that have made me realise that I'm transforming into something new and that have encouraged me to embrace this change.
I recently rediscovered my Tumblr account after a couple of years of absence and realised how my interests have completely changed. My account had been dedicated to Sherlock (particularly gifs of Johnlock), Dan and Phil (amongst other Youtubers) and Benedict Cumberbatch and I had been obsessed with blogging, reblogging and favouriting anything even faintly #relatable. Now, although I do still love Sherlock and watch youtubers from time to time, my interests have changed to folk music, languages and linguistics, and Doddleoddle (yes, a youtuber, but also an inspiration for who I aspire to be as a person style-wise, speech-wise, mentality-wise and life-wise).
And these interests have transformed me into a new person. Listening to this new style of music (as I am right now, writing this post) has influenced my life in such a positive way, by always keeping me uplifted and also by making me completely
reassess music and good musicianship. My interest in languages and linguistics has made me view the world in a totally different way and given me an aspiration which I am now driven to work towards. And when recently having a major sort out of my wardrobe, I ended up ridding myself of over half of my clothes as I no longer see myself as someone who wears (or suits) shorts shorts, tight tops or pretty and cutesy blouses and dresses - and now when buying new clothes for Autumn and Winter I am totally and utterly inspired by doddleoddle's fashion sense.

And although these seems like pretty menial things, together they have made me look at myself in the mirror and not only see myself as a new person, but a better person. Someone who seems happy. Someone who is slightly strange but is comfortable enough in their own skin to not care about being judged by others. Someone who is totally and utterly themselves. I am enjoying who I have become and who I am still becoming.