You are not your self-image

A couple of weeks ago, in a piece called ‘Re-appropriate and release’, I wrote:

I'm going to be conscious of this and stop describing myself as a nerd to myself and others. Not because I don't identify with these people anymore, but because I do and I want things to move forward. Nerdiness to me is just attention to detail, passion and a little bit of awkwardness. None of those traits are shameful and no issues that occur as a result of these traits are unsolvable. This all might seem trivial but it is a first step.

When I re-read this piece and discussed it with a few friends, I realised what was missing: I didn’t outline what it was a ‘first step’ towards. It turns out that I’m glad I didn’t. In order to get to this question, we need to take a step back.

One of the reasons that people use stereotypes is that they make it far easier for us to categorise people, to process them and understand why they are behaving in a certain way. Traditionally we think of people doing this to others in a hostile way, but just as interesting and harmful is the way that a person might use stereotypes to understand themselves. That’s what I was talking about in the last piece: taking someone else’s insults and applying them to yourself in order to explain why you exhibit certain characteristics.

You might have already recognised that you’ve done this to yourself over the course of your life, I know I have. For you, it might have been ‘blonde’, ‘tradie’, ‘party girl’ or ‘stoner.’ We identify ourselves with something and we begin to think we are this fictional construct, which can help explain why we are behaving in a certain way. It helps us cope with our insecurities in that we can reassure ourselves that we were made to be like this. That we are just being what we are.

But we are not our self-image.

This is so important. Say it out loud.

I am not my self-image.

When we put ourselves into these boxes, we deny ourselves the agency we need to understand our own flaws and embrace the things that make us interesting, complex individuals. If you say to yourself that you are a ditzy blonde or an awkward nerd, you are giving yourself very little scope to take charge of the behaviour that might be inhibiting your growth or personal development.

I don’t advocate changing any behaviour that you enjoy or gain fulfilment from. I’m not telling people to throw out their comic books, hairspray or utes. Everybody needs to embrace the positive things that make them who they are. But any aspect of your life that frustrates you can be addressed through conscious decisions and effort. One of the first steps towards changing these things is coming to terms with the fact that you are not an idea of a person but that you are a complex, confusing and imperfect entity. Then you have to be prepared for the really hard work. Understand that you will feel vulnerable, because the longer you have been using your adopted identity as a shield, the less comfortable you’ll be without it.

In the beginning I was talking about the first step. One of the problems with that phrase is that it makes it sound like there's a destination that we eventually reach if only we could just get started. But there really isn't one. All that there can be is a journey that will help us find our more fulfilled selves. It may not be a destination but it sounds to me like a journey worth undertaking.

Cities and minds

Our minds are like cities.

Like cities. Huge, sweeping spaces where all kinds of people live in any number of different ways. There are fancy, well-to-do suburbs and run down, neglected areas.

Some days the weather is grey and cloudy and some times the sun comes out early, covering everything in a gentle gloss. On some days any two areas can experience different weather entirely, like they were four hundred kilometres apart instead of four.

Like our minds, our cities are forever works in progress. When the ribbon is cut on a new building or a busy road is resurfaced, an old bridge on the other side of town awaits reinforcement. Like people, cities are never finished, never completed. They are living, breathing, writhing organisms that grow and contract, shifting with the passing of time.

Just because a few areas of our lives seem completely stable and healthy, nothing can ever be perfect across our whole map. And even if one aspect of our lives is improving, the answer to stability, balance and happiness is never found by focusing on one area and neglecting others. Nor can it this balance found by treating different parts of our lives like tasks on a list. We are all our own ongoing project; projects that we need to be continually conscious of and seek to better understand.

Walking around this city feels a little bit like walking around in my own mind. I feel like we have a lot in common with one another. The feeling of my sneakers on a Melbourne footpath is reassuring. I had strangely similar feelings when I took my first walk around New York City. I walked two hundred metres by streetlight in sub-zero temperatures and felt an immediate connection.

Some places resonate deeply with us and some do not. Some places inspire me to write abstract, wispy love letters like this while others seem to me just to be simple collections of buildings. I feel lucky that I've already found a couple of places that feel like topographic maps of my mind. I'm confident that as I see more of the world I'll find a few more.

Re-appropriate and release

I’ve always worn the nerd badge with pride. I’ve been conscious of it my entire life. I think I correctly believed early on that nerdiness was a part of who I was without knowing exactly what that actually meant. The longer I spent out of the formal education system, the more I embraced this label to describe aspects of my personality and identity. Thinking now though, I’m starting to change my attitude.

Groups of people that feel labelled or marginalised in some way often seek to re-appropriate the derogatory terms that have been used to hurt them. Taking ownership of these hurtful terms seems to be an attempt to disempower those who used them as weapons by blunting their impact through repeated use. At the same time it also appears to give these groups a sense of empowerment and control over the use of the labels in ways that they never had before. Better to own the offensive word and try to redefine it rather than let those hostile continue to do so instead.

I can think of a few good examples of this. The gay and lesbian movement has done a good job claiming many of the traditional insults and derogatory names that have plagued their community for decades. Some sections of African-American culture have chosen to informally reclaim the use of the term 'nigger.' The SlutWalk movement, a group against victim-blaming and 'slut-shaming' have made this desire to re-appropriate the word explicit:

Historically, the term ‘slut’ has carried a predominantly negative connotation...whether dished out as a serious indictment of one’s character or merely as a flippant insult, the intent behind the word is always to wound, so we’re taking it back. “Slut” is being re-appropriated.

I am not comparing the generational struggles of gay rights, racism and feminism with that of nerd and geek culture, merely that these are examples of communities re-appropriating derogatory terms. I cannot be critical of this behaviour. I think it is a perfectly acceptable and useful tool against those who seek to hurt others in this way. But it should not be considered the endpoint of cultural or linguistic disarmament. It's simply not enough, and left like this can even be harmful.

The reason these words are used and eventually become candidates for re-appropriation is that they convey hurtful connotations. I don't think reclaiming these words can ever rid them of those meanings. All it can do it lift the veil and change their ownership. This may be a step in the right direction, but it's not enough.

Once they are reclaimed the next step is to gradually retire them. It is a slow process and success is difficult to measure, but the end point should always be the removal of the phrase from use by anyone, friend and foe alike. Without this retirement, the expectations and connotations of these words cannot be defeated and even the people who identify as members of these communities cannot help but live and operate by expectations defined by hostile people.

I'm going to be conscious of this and stop describing myself as a nerd to myself and others. Not because I don't identify with these people anymore, but because I do and I want things to move forward. Nerdiness to me is just attention to detail, passion and a little bit of awkwardness. None of those traits are shameful and no issues that occur as a result of these traits are unsolvable. This all might seem trivial but it is a first step. You might have a label like this that you need to shed. Think about what you might have to gain from doing so.