Perception vs. Reality
I'm having a hard time lately with the difference between how I perceive myself and how I appear to others.
Let me start with a few abstract examples.
There are some things that I am confident I can do, but in reality cannot. When I listen to the radio and hear a song with a wicked beat I think to myself, "I could probably play this on the drums." The reality is that I can barely keep a beat on the drums and I usually have to start over if I try to do a fill.
Another thing I'm confident I can do until I try it is Karate. In my head I am a master of the martial arts. My training consists of study under the greatest masters Hollywood and the video game industry have produced. I, like most guys who grew up geeks, will scan any room I am in long enough to find the most fantastic way of getting out of danger should any "shit" go down. This would include, but certainly not be limited to, using curtains and other support structures in a theater to make an acrobatic escape, or if need be, a bold aerial attack. Yes, in my head, flying roundhouse kicks and Tony Jaa worthy aeronautics are only as far away as trying. In reality, trying would only lead a brutally unmerciful end.
It's worth noting the irony here that a guy who gets winded walking up the gentle slope to the parking lot at the U thinks he could scale a 30-foot wall with virtually no hand holds in seconds flat.
There are also a few real world applications to this discrepancy. I say I like the outdoors, but I haven't done any camping or even day hiking in years. This may be due to a somewhat severe lack of time, but still, the reality is different from my point of view.
Along those same lines, I say that I love to read and write. To me this is true, but I dare anyone to find more than a handful of things I've read or written in the last five years (besides text books and essays on communication theory).
Recently I have found that this works the other way around, though.
I don't think I'm a very good student, but I currently have a 3.75 gpa at a university and I'm a year or so away from graduation. Teachers and other students have been impressed with my work and have told me so on numerous occasions. But you couldn't convince me. In my head I'm too lazy to be a good student.
I'm also not convinced that I'm much of a parent. With full time work and almost full time school I really only see my 2 children about 2 to 2 1/2 hours a day, if at all. I usually spend all weekend with them, but that sounds like divorced dad talk. Am I just a weekend dad? But I've been told by people whose opinions matter to me that I'm a good dad; that I go above and beyond for my kids.
So which is the real me? Am I a rock star? A Kung Fu master? Am I an outdoorsman with a worn out copy of Atlas Shrugged in my bag and pen behind my ear? Am I a lazy student and a deadbeat dad?
Or am I what you see?
Am I somehow both? Is the real me a combination of this inner madness and outer mundanity? When I file weekly reports, do I do it like a rock star? Have I taken to raising my kids like a Kung Fu master? When I write a criticism of a visual experience for school, do I write it with the heart of the Scandinavian naturalist masters whose works I've read so many times?
I guess who I "really am" is an abstract idea anyway. I'll be who I am and I'll be who you think I am. We both seem to be making this work.
At least, I think so. What do you think?
Let me start with a few abstract examples.
There are some things that I am confident I can do, but in reality cannot. When I listen to the radio and hear a song with a wicked beat I think to myself, "I could probably play this on the drums." The reality is that I can barely keep a beat on the drums and I usually have to start over if I try to do a fill.
Another thing I'm confident I can do until I try it is Karate. In my head I am a master of the martial arts. My training consists of study under the greatest masters Hollywood and the video game industry have produced. I, like most guys who grew up geeks, will scan any room I am in long enough to find the most fantastic way of getting out of danger should any "shit" go down. This would include, but certainly not be limited to, using curtains and other support structures in a theater to make an acrobatic escape, or if need be, a bold aerial attack. Yes, in my head, flying roundhouse kicks and Tony Jaa worthy aeronautics are only as far away as trying. In reality, trying would only lead a brutally unmerciful end.
It's worth noting the irony here that a guy who gets winded walking up the gentle slope to the parking lot at the U thinks he could scale a 30-foot wall with virtually no hand holds in seconds flat.
There are also a few real world applications to this discrepancy. I say I like the outdoors, but I haven't done any camping or even day hiking in years. This may be due to a somewhat severe lack of time, but still, the reality is different from my point of view.
Along those same lines, I say that I love to read and write. To me this is true, but I dare anyone to find more than a handful of things I've read or written in the last five years (besides text books and essays on communication theory).
Recently I have found that this works the other way around, though.
I don't think I'm a very good student, but I currently have a 3.75 gpa at a university and I'm a year or so away from graduation. Teachers and other students have been impressed with my work and have told me so on numerous occasions. But you couldn't convince me. In my head I'm too lazy to be a good student.
I'm also not convinced that I'm much of a parent. With full time work and almost full time school I really only see my 2 children about 2 to 2 1/2 hours a day, if at all. I usually spend all weekend with them, but that sounds like divorced dad talk. Am I just a weekend dad? But I've been told by people whose opinions matter to me that I'm a good dad; that I go above and beyond for my kids.
So which is the real me? Am I a rock star? A Kung Fu master? Am I an outdoorsman with a worn out copy of Atlas Shrugged in my bag and pen behind my ear? Am I a lazy student and a deadbeat dad?
Or am I what you see?
Am I somehow both? Is the real me a combination of this inner madness and outer mundanity? When I file weekly reports, do I do it like a rock star? Have I taken to raising my kids like a Kung Fu master? When I write a criticism of a visual experience for school, do I write it with the heart of the Scandinavian naturalist masters whose works I've read so many times?
I guess who I "really am" is an abstract idea anyway. I'll be who I am and I'll be who you think I am. We both seem to be making this work.
At least, I think so. What do you think?
posted by sleepy viking at
8:51 AM
1 Comments:
Congradulations now you've given me an identity crisis as well. I'm afraid I'm not the ravishing, mysterious, intelletual, athletic, invincible, force-wielding, icon of universal envy that I once thought I was... *sigh*
Thanks alot!
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