I had a massive ‘revelation’ today whilst I was in the library. ‘Revelation’ is in inverted commas because that’s not exactly what it was, and I’m not sure if there’s a single word to describe it (epiphany isn’t right either). It was like I suddenly realised that Chaucer, Virginia Woolf, cognitive poetics and quantum physics had all merged together into this great big mass of inextricably linked understanding and meaning. And I’m being serious here. It wasn’t like they all suddenly started to make sense, or seemed linked together. It was like they’d always been that way, and had all been part of the same thing, yet I’d only just realised it. A flash of realisation perhaps, making sense only in my head, and failing to be explained or defined by language alone. It made me quite hyper actually, though I’m not sure why. I’ve been analysing things even more so than usual recently, mainly down to my lectures on Virginia Woolf and the way the lecturer phrases things.

For me, personally at the moment, I have a great interest in permanency and impermanency. If I were to make a film of my life, what bits would I pick? What could I get away with without people sueing me? How many things that I would want to put in now will I remember in ten years’ time? How many things from now will I change my mind about?

How much of me would I actually want to put in? I want to be able to put everything, even the most personal things into it, but would I end up being able to do so?

The concept of the influences of other people, time and space also fascinates me on a social level. If I stepped out of my door two minutes later, I’d walk past completely different people in the street. ‘If I put an hour’s work in now, I may end up at a completely different university.’ ‘If I argue with my friend, I may never speak to him again.’ How far are we aware of our actions and how they will influence ours and other’s lives? Obviously not very much, or we wouldn’t regret things nearly as much. 

This is particularly emphatic in my head when things happen that seem like they might be significant: such as missing a train, having the next one cancelled and then ending up on the next one talking to some fantastic people, as happened to me a few weeks ago. The sheer randomness of it (or is it randomness? was I always destined to get that particular train and talk to those particular people?) is breathtaking. Just a few of those happenings and decisions can change your whole life. 

And everyone on the planet is making millions of those decisions all the time, changing your life for you. The lack of control fascinates me, and yet people are often labelled ‘control freak’. It seems so inadequate in the sense of the bigger picture.

A question that came up recently asked, what is the self? Is it how you define yourself or how others define you? Not only is it others defining you, it’s the way in which others (not necessarily the same others) are making their decisions which alter your life and thus alter your perceptions and your sense of self. And your self. Confusing? Maybe a little.

My own notion of self-perception has always been very skewed. When I was a lot younger, I was notoriously unaware of myself as a person. I took little interest in what I looked like and how others saw me. Then during high school, I began to find out who I was, and for a while I didn’t like the person I saw. Neither, it seemed, did many other people (though I didn’t like them either, to be fair). At this point I had two sides – the person I was and the person I wanted to be. Then, during sixth form college, I began to become this new person. It was a fresh start. I began to like myself more and be more satisfied with who I was, and I did a lot of changing. However, one side of me was still looking back, unsure and convinced that she was hated. Now I’m in university, my self-esteem is still pretty low, especially in terms of how I think I look to others. This is partly due to a certain university ‘friend’s mindgames over the past year, but it also makes me wonder if I’ll ever get out of this mindset. And if I will be truely happy with who I am.

Unlikely, since I don’t really know who I am, and who I think I am is a very different thing from who you think I am. And what the people around me think of me and who I am, and so on and so forth.

I seem to have written most of my unsettledness out for now, and I’m going out for dinner tonight and should probably start getting ready soon so I’ll leave it at that..  

Related posts:

1. Yesterday
2. New Year
3. Longggg Entry
4. The End for Starshine?
5. Work

Jenni posted in Offline, Random, University, friends |