In Context

I would've liked my first post to be something jovial, something light, or something kinda cool about myself. Something that showcases my awesomeness and greatness. But ironically, this is none of those things, and yet it probably showcases what I'm like better than either of those kinds of posts would have.

I've always had this weird identity problem, and it might be common but if it is, it bothers me more than it does most others. Who I am depends on the context I'm in. If I'm around some of the younger 'kouhais' of mine who know me as a somewhat wisecracking advice-giver that seems to know everything, sarcasm is the mayonnaise I liberally apply to most of my comments. I poke fun at just about everything, and everything will always, in the end, be all right. On the other hand, with my college peers, I'm a bit different-- in class, I'm probably the dude who knows all the answers; or in the case of my major, the guy who sounds like he has all the answers. If it's not classmates, then it's friends, and then I'm the one who misconstrues everything on purpose, often to comedic effect, with the multiple personalities, a flimsy determination to take over the world and an unhealthy interest in violence and weapons. None of these personalities are mutually exclusive, and there seem to be shades of each personality in every other expression of my personality. So far, so good-- there isn't any real cause for concern, I think. I have to imagine that this kind of 'split' is common is not completely ordinary.

What bothers me most is the programming that goes into the personalities. It sounds almost like something from an anime, or from TV to say that I program reflexes, but I have to admit that it's true. Back when emotions were to cumbersome to deal with, I got used to not expressing them because on a large scale, I failed to feel them. But the world, and society at large doesn't really feel comfortable dealing with robotic people who are dead inside. I think it unnerves them that the robotic domination of the world threat isn't coming directly from the machines, it's coming from the people who have become like machines. Anyways, I didn't really want to cause a stir or weird people out too much, so I started faking the emotions. In text, this isn't at all very hard, and it's only a few skips and a hop to applying that to everyday life. Out of a weird tendency I have, I've trained myself not to be startled, or rather, not to react to being startled. As a result, I have only the smallest reaction to things suddenly popping, making loud noises or people popping out. Enough to fool most people anyways, and I could insert my own desires "reflex" into that slot. Soon I became able to insert programmed reflexes into any kind of situation, creating a kind of 'unconscious personality' that was completely artificial. I could, surprised at a snide comment a friend made, or at a sudden revelation, literally fall out of my chair and no one doubted the veracity of that reaction. The personas began to emerge out of the reflexes and probably something subconscious; nice guy most of all. It came to the point where I would unconsciously perform my programmed reflexes, and the line between conscious programming and true reflex began to blur.

This is where I am now. There are things I say that only in hindsight I can recognize as a preprogrammed reflex; some are new, some are old. It's as if I'm some kind of cyborg; part human, part machine; the only problem is that I can't tell you which is which.

Years later, I sometimes find myself shifting back to previously established and long-abandoned personae; taking up the masks and mantles that I had discarded for better, more mature ones. Ones that I had painstakingly wrought so that I could distinguish the metal in the man, and remove the metal to reveal the man. The old clothes don't quite fit just right, and it's a bit different now, but the clothes stay on. On enough to convince anyways. It's so awkward because I'm not really that person. I mean I am. was. But I'm not anymore. Shouldn't be. But I am all the same. At what point in its metamorphosis does the butterfly cease to be the caterpillar? Is it a changed being? Is it still the same being? Does the change in name imply somehow that it is in no way the same? It's a step, one step. In the same way, the person I was, am, I never cease to be. I can never cease to be that Chris-Kun that used to chat all the time on the internet. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't stop. I never stopped being Chris-Kun, or Chris-Dono for that matter. But I'm also not either of them anymore.

I'm not as intensely agonized over who I am anymore; I'm not so irrevocably convinced that I'm intrinsically more evil than any other person on the planet. But like I told someone else; if my life is a book, a lot of my struggles are the themes in it. They've been there, they are there, and they'll continue to be there throughout the narrative. Their resolution only means that they're replaced by other issues, or that they've been absorbed into some kind of Hegelian Thesis for the next level of synthesis.

For the moment, who I am is far too difficult a question for me to address directly: Who I am is determined by the present company, time and circumstances. It shifts ever so slightly with each addition and subtraction of every element in the present context. But eventually I hope to be just one: someone who is always the same in the context of a single circumstance; my life. Who I am will be the solid bedrock on which I build my empire.

To take over the world.