Sunday, October 22, 2006

Identity

One day, Spongebob lost his identity. Everything he ever was, is, and could be is stuck in a tiny repository, which is none other than his Krusty Krab name tag. His name tag is a solid thing, something which can be misplaced, say, in a garbage dump or in the oven. And he did misplace it. But sometimes, we find the things we lost—especially if they’re material in the first place. And an identity?

No one can see, touch, taste, hear, or smell an identity. What happens when you’re not Spongebob and you lost yours?

In college, you can be anyone. No one knows you well enough to cook up unreasonable expectations of who you should and shouldn’t be. You don’t have to prove anything to anyone, anyway, not the things that matter so much to you to prove. In a setting like that, what stops you from losing sight of who you really are, and which things really matter to you? It’s a big world. You can be someone, no one, anyone, even nothing—but you can’t always be you.

I guess most of us had or is having an identity crisis. I’ve had mine. Of course it was tough, but like Spongebob, a part of who I am is stuck on something more solid and hard to lose than a name tag. I am stuck on (and I can’t believe I haven’t figured this out earlier) Obzite.

With my high school batch mates, I am who I’ve been for the first 16 years of my existence. Everything is strictly defined. So who cares if I listen to punk now and wear black stockings to school? I’ll always be the Weird one (well, yeah, I’m still weird in school or out of it, but weirdness has varying degrees—I’m weirdly normal in UP, and normally weird with Obzite), the sentimental Gitarista, the Honor Student. Which leads me to propound a theory: after two years, our batch is still close because it gives us a chance to get back to the identity we misplaced once we stepped into college.

Do you understand the lure? Many of us were itching to break away from the strict stereotypes which defined us ever since we were in Senior Prep. And who wouldn’t be? Then the time for college came. Liberation! It even rhymed with graduation. After it, some of my batch mates never did show up for any gathering, even the major ones like debuts. They did break away, and for some reason or other do not have any inclination to go back.

However, most of us did go back. We step into the foreign halls of our colleges and morph into something unrecognizable. We step into Obzite and morph back into the familiar.

Sometimes, you’d be surprised why you didn’t look behind in the first place.

If you’ve watched the episode, Spongebob found his identity stuck behind his shirt.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Haha.. An identity, a weird identity according to them!

11:14 PM  
Blogger Ferretti shoes said...

manoy, i've long ago stopped considering about what they think. after all, they're not the only people in the universe. but it's nice to be with them once in a while.

9:16 PM  

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