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

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.

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.

Life Through the Lens

I am always taking photographs. Every party or day out or holiday I go to is accompanied by the click of a shutter and the blink of a flash and I then preserve every experience by displaying the photos around my room so I can enliven my memories.  And with cameras being built into virtually all mobile phones, we are now constantly able to capture these moments and store them and share them with the world. However, I am beginning to feel that this obsession we have with sharing experiences through photos could in fact be tainting the experiences themselves.

This summer, I went to two music festivals - Cambridge Folk Festival and Reading Festival - both of which I thoroughly enjoyed. My two favourite bands, Punch Brothers and Mumford and Sons were playing at these events respectively and it was such a great experience hearing them live. However, there was a significant difference between the two concerts - I filmed parts of the Punch Brothers' set, but for Mumford and Sons, I just watched - and I have to say that I did feel considerably more engaged in the musicality in the Mumford and Sons concert and just noticed much more.
Although I mentioned that the addiction of photographing and filming has originated from our obsession with updating our statuses about our experiences, in no way was I filming Punch Brothers in order to blast it across social media immediately afterwards. However, I still felt compelled to film their set in order to watch it back and relive the experience. As I have mentioned previously, Punch Brothers are amazing live because of what they add to their performances that is not on their CD and I filmed them in order to capture these moments - it was almost as if I didn't trust my memory to retain their amazing performance. But what I was really doing was robbing myself of the thrill of watching them perform, so when I watch the film back, all I am doing is watching them play (like I could already do on youtube) - I don't feel any sort of emotional attachment to the clip, unlike the excitement I still feel when reliving the snippets I have in my memory.  The battery ran out on my phone about halfway through their set and although I was disappointed at the time, I now realise how much more engaged I was in their musicianship, expression and emotion when I wasn't filming.

It was after this concert that I found the tweet above by Chris Thile (lead singer and mandolin player of Punch Brothers) and I really began thinking about how filming at concerts could influence your experience. I have always been against filming in proper concert halls, namely because it's usually illegal, but also because of how distracting it can be to the people in the audience and on stage. However, due to the more informal nature of music festivals, where people whoop and cheer and chat during performances, I always thought it was a good idea to film the music as you can once again not only watch the musicians playing again, but you can familiarise yourself with the whole vibe of the experience. But no, all you are doing is depriving yourself of your first experience and living vicariously through a camera. After feeling such a difference in my over all experience of the two bands, I am truly against filming at concerts.

Something else I have noticed in myself since becoming increasingly involved in social media - something I am actually quite embarrassed to admit - is that there have been moments in my life where I've been offered opportunities to do something and I have wanted to do them solely because I think it will look good on social media. Times like this include: learning the Northumbrian pipes at Cambridge Folk Festival because I thought it would look cool, teaching the cup song to a village of Vietnamese children because I thought I'd look inspirational, and climbing to the top of a huge hill so I could take a great photo of myself looking out to see. At times like this, I have step back and reassess my life and decide whether I really want to do these things to enrich my life, or just to maintain a façade as social media queen (which I definitely am not). If it is the latter - of which two of those examples were - I stop myself in fear that I will become another one of the vain addicts to Instagram that I have grown to loathe.

I am scared that this obsession with preserving memories with videos and photos is depriving us of the experiences themselves. I am scared that this addiction to sharing photos and updating our statuses is leading us into a world governed by the number of likes you get on your life choices and experiences.  I am scared we are living our lives for the benefit of other people and not for ourselves.


We should run through the forest
We should swim in the streams
We should laugh, we should cry,
We should love, we should dream
We should stare at the stars and not just the screens
You should hear what I'm saying and know what it means
-Passenger

Keeping a Diary

I've just begun writing in a diary again.

For my birthday, I got the 'One Line a Day Five Year Memory Book' and I think it's such a wonderful thing. Although I have only kept it for 2 months, I already can look back at the memories I've collected with nostalgia, so what will it be like in five years time, when I'm on my final year? I'll be 21 by then - which seems so old - and yet 5 years is such a short period of time that it scares me that so much can change in that period. I'll be in my final year of university then, but I've only just finished my GCSEs! I hope to have done so many things by that time - I want a distinction in grade 8 flute and a performance diploma, I want to have finished my first novel, I want to have got GCSE and A-level results that I'm proud of (and some rather more personal things that I'm not really ready to share with the internet...). This is such a big period of change, where I'm essentially deciding what I want to do for the rest of my life.

But the thing with this diary is that you are blessed with only a few lines a day, which leaves me craving for more room to write all my thoughts and feelings for that day. Hence why I have begun another diary, filled solely with said thoughts and feelings. To begin with, I organised my thoughts and made them comprehensible, but I'm only on my second entry and already I'm just spilling out everything I've ever thought into random ramblings. Anything I've ever remembered thinking or feeling I suddenly write down, and yes it may now be a mismatch of random notes and opinions and emotions but it feels like I'm spilling out every dwindling thought that I've had and kept locked away onto a page.

It's so incredibly therapeutic.

It's so strange, though, because it's as if I feel relieved after writing everything down, because I no longer have to rely on my memory to retain these random wonderings, I now have them written down too. The feeling is almost indescribable.
You are allowed to talk about yourself endlessly and release all private feelings that you've previously kept locked away. It feels so GREAT relieving myself of these thoughts. It's almost like your final exam in a subject, where you can finally dump all your knowledge of that subject on a page and be done with it. You no longer have to keep reminding yourself of things.

I already feel lighter. The burden of worries I've had in my head now seem feeble written down, yet they had seemed to be swarming around my brain endlessly. It's also made me reconsider my dreams and aspirations. I was so set on a certain path for my life, but writing things down makes them seem like they are set in stone, considerably moreso than when it's just in your head, and it's made me considerably more doubtful about whether that's really what I want. Yes, it may still end up being the path I end up following, but hesitating over writing it down in my diary has made me realise that I can be open to so many other paths.

I think everyone should keep a diary. It has completely changed my perspective on my own life. I've revealed more worries than I thought I had, and although they haven't disappeared, I feel like I've relieved myself of them for at least a short time; I've released my darkest suppressed thoughts, and realised I'm not a bad person for thinking them; I've discovered what makes me happy, which thoughts and memories I should bring into my consciousness more often to make me more relaxed; I've discovered what I really want out of life.

And these entries may never be read.
Certainly, I hope no one else pries and destroys the confidentiality that my diary holds, but I myself may never read what I have written. I have no real need to: I'm not documenting what's happening every day in my life - that's what my five year diary is for -  whatever I'm writing I already know. Yet, even still, it feels like I'm talking to someone. And it honestly helps. Talking to someone you know won't judge, won't spill your secrets, won't expect you to ask about their lives too (despite that sounding terribly selfish, it's true, everyone wants to talk about themselves) - it's alleviating.

I've deliberately left this unedited, despite the fact that I know it's rambly, riddled with unnecessary commas, and no doubt open to misinterpretation. But I want it to feel organic and as if unscripted.

I can't finish this post without making a reference to this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoVf-StW5nY. Hannah Witton is the one who gave me the idea to begin another diary, solely for my thoughts and feelings.

Start a diary.

Life Through Rose-Tinted Glasses

How much greener the grass is through these rose-tinted glasses - Passenger, The Wrong Direction

This is one of my absolute favourite song lyrics. I love how simple it is, yet so clever and so powerful.

Seeing the world through 'rose-tinted glasses' means only seeing the pleasant parts of it. By using this phrase with reference to the idiom 'The grass is always greener on the other side' (its exact opposite), Passenger seems to be suggesting that by looking only at the pleasant parts of the world, you can rid yourself of the envy within the phrase 'The grass is always on the other side' and instead appreciate what you have yourself - 'How much greener the grass is'.

I love this quote because it shows how by taking a different perspective on life for a short period of time, you can appreciate what you really have.

But is life permanently better through a narrow-minded view of only the positives? By ignoring depravity, poverty and austerity can you appreciate the fortunes in your own life?

Evil defines happiness. Without the creation of the devil, would heaven seem so attractive? If Pandora hadn't opened her box, would we ever understand elation? Or would we just be forever content?

I am what some may call a 'philosophical drunk' - I often try to tackle questions of moral responsibility and the good vs the evil and also have existential crises when intoxicated. Anyway, the other day (when a little tipsy) I came to the conclusion that the concept of Hell is perhaps favourable to the concept of Heaven. Yes, in Heaven, you will experience luxury and eternal pleasure without the worries of life on Earth, but can you really be happy without being able to compare your eternity to something terrible or evil? However in Hell, you would learn to appreciate the small pleasures, much like in life. This sounds like a very strange thing to say, as Hell is designed for eternal suffering, but when being tortured in many different ways, there would be ways of comparing one torment to another. You may not experience happiness (in its strictest form), but you would prefer one thing to another, you would experience favouritism.
Personally, even if it is not better, I think it definitely sounds more interesting than forever looking at snow-capped mountains and watching angels flutter about.