“If I asked you ‘who are you?’ what would you say?” — said Remy.
It was a summer night in New York City. The kind of summer that begs you to wear shorts at night. We were sitting outside, sipping an overpriced drink after flirting with the waitress. I paused and thought: “this is clearly a question coming from a single man in his mid thirties.” This obsession with the self and its relation with the rest of the world seemed familiar and strange all at once, like listening to a recording of your own voice. The more I searched, I struggled to find an answer.
I used to care so much about my identity. I spent so much time thinking about it, wrote about it a bunch, and even organized an event with over 4,000 people to talk about how identity influences our work. Today, I don’t spend any time thinking about it. What does that say about me?
If I were to be charitable, I’d say that it’s because I’ve been in a state of flow of sorts over the last year. Not necessarily the flow state that Pixar immortalized in Soul —although that too, sometimes— but the hyper awareness of the cliché that time doesn’t stop and life isn’t about me. This may be obvious to most parents reading this, but it’s certainly counterintuitive to the rest of us.
It’s been a year since our son was born. Everything they say is true. One thing that has been pleasant to witness is what’s happened to my understanding of time since identifying as “a parent.” From the moment we learned that my partner was pregnant, our life locked into a rail with predictable milestones along the way. This became a shortcut to understand what we were going through, what’s coming, and how to relate with others. I spent most of my life thinking I was a weirdo with unique sensibilities that made me different from everyone else and suddenly, I found myself going through the same beats as the rest of them. There’s something really beautiful about that. A sort of surrendering to the ride. Sometimes you can even let go of the bar, put your hands up, and feel the wind blow through your hair.
If I do nothing, my life will change. My son will grow and through his eyes I will see a new world. The best part is that it’s impossible to predict where this ride takes us — other than the anticlimactic fade to black at the end. An aimless flow state. That’s a wonderful gift! Like a boat drifting through the Atlantic Ocean, I can row and listen to the wind but ultimately I’m subject to the will of the tide.
So, who am I? Who does the cell think it is? Does it matter? The cell does its job, reproduces, and dies, so it is then replaced by another, nameless, unidentifiable cell. The cell has value and a purpose, but it would be silly to give it a name.
It’s tempting to build an identity around the things I’ve done, but I find it more valuable to build it around an understanding of what gives me energy. As we approached the birth of Gustavo, I wondered what would happen to my energy. Will I no longer care about work? Will I finally find peace and settle down into a comfortable high-paying, low-demanding job? Will I lose motivation and happily become a follower? Will I finally declare bankruptcy with younger generations and pick a single worldview as the “right one”?
I now live in a perpetual “it’s too early to tell” state of mind, but it seems like the opposite has been true. Instead of working towards accomplishing something (exiting the ride and “arriving” somewhere) I’ve shifted my focus to living as if I’ve already accomplished what I was trying to do and answering the “what now?” question (enjoying the ride)
Surprisingly, what’s on the other side isn’t complacency nor is it peace or happiness; it’s actually a refreshing sense of clarity. That word, clarity, may fool you to think life is simpler. It’s not. Everything is more complex now than it’s ever been. There are more people to consider, more feelings experienced at once, more stuff to pack, more blocks on my calendar, more reasons to get up earlier in the morning. However, many choices become easier to make, because there’s fewer paths to take.
And so the choice of discovering/building an identity becomes easier to make. So much so that it isn’t even a choice, it just is/I just am.