Identity

I often wonder "Why am I like this?" and "Why do I feel this way? " Those aren't the most original questions. Philosophers and psychologists have been pondering them and attempting to answer them for a long time. Trying to figure out if it's nature (hereditary) or nurture (environment) can be a fun parlor game. Alternatively, the truly curious folks, who also have good insurance or a lot of money can undergo analysis in any one of several flavors, Freudian, Jungian and so forth. 

I'd really like to know how I ended up such a political outlier. Both of my parents are Republicans, although my Mother was a Nixon despising liberal until she married a conservative a few years after I left home. Despite living in a red state, never attending college, serving in the military and working in manufacturing, plus being straight, white and cis-male, I'm an AOC, Bernie Sanders type, a loud one. 

Some parts of who I am are definitely genetically influenced. Alcoholism, unfortunately, is a problem that's affected people in my family for more than just a single generation. Luckily for them, my siblings have a STOP button and can drink moderately or not at all when they choose. For me, only total abstinence from everything mood altering has been the only solution. I've never been bitter or jealous about it, though. I just didn't win the genetic lottery.

As anyone who reads this blog with any regularity knows, I consider myself to be the luckiest married man on the face of the earth. I absolutely lucked out when I met my wife. I was 47 and did not have a good track record when it came to maintaining a happy home life. Somehow, though, the two of us have not had a difficult time staying enamored of one another. We spend every possible minute together, and each of us takes care of the other in different ways. How, so late in life, did I acquire the skill to be happily married year after year?

Despite being an average student, I've always performed well on standardized tests. I failed half the math classes I took in high school but scored as high on the SAT as friends who got into engineering school. It was test scores and charm (or manipulation my Mom called it when she was mad) that allowed me to participate in programs for gifted kids in school, not my grades. My only contribution to my own mental development has been an insatiable life-long love of reading and being curious about a long list of things. My brother and sister also had great test scores, but they backed them up with good grades and post graduate studies at flagship universities. Our parents, the children of farmers, both have degrees now, but they didn't get them until their 30s. I tell my wife that I used to be smarter because I scored lower on mental acuity tests given to me in rehab than the ones I took as a teenager. In any case, I was blessed genetically with thinking skills I certainly didn't work for.

There are numerous other characteristics I'd like to have more insight into. I have the skills of an extrovert but the disposition of an introvert. What's that about? Like many, many people in recovery, my preferred sports (before my knees gave out) were all endurance based. Why? Why am I a procrastinator? What makes me go from calm to irate in a nanosecond, but only once or twice a year? I'll probably never get satisfactory answers to those questions, but I'll be OK with that. It will just give me something to think about.

Enjoyed it? Please upvote 👇