For a long time I had no idea who I was. Or supposed to be. The eternal question of “Who am I?” was always somewhere on my mind. Sometimes front and centre, sometimes laying dormant in the back but never gone completely. Sure, I had a few ideas about what I enjoyed doing and how that might somehow contribute to an overarching sense of identity. But not a single time in recent years was I able to talk about myself in the way of “I am X”.
I’m fully aware that we, as humans, are a tad more complex than a simple variable and our characters are usually a bit more refined than a single attribute we attach to ourselves. But I wasn’t even at there yet. I wasn’t able to attach anything to my personality what I could call “identity”. I had no sense of…me.
We All Love a Good Story
It was one of those nights again. Sitting in a bar, reading, watching, contemplating. I’m not sure what sparked the epiphany I had on this night but suddenly my perspective started to shift drastically, and I was able to see paths ahead where before there was only impenetrable mist.
Maybe because I was completely sober, despite the venue. The decision to quit drinking for an indefinite period was made a few days prior. Earlier, I already went through a full month without a single drink, mainly to prove to myself that I was still capable of doing so without encountering withdrawal symptoms. I managed to do so, only to wreck this whole endeavour the very next day by getting wasted beyond recognition and another heavy intoxicated evening a week later, although not as bad as the first one.
The day after I realized something. The most memorable and profound experiences in my life happened when I was completely sober. When my mind worked at full capacity and remained sharp throughout the whole adventure. Two years ago, I spent nine days with one of the most amazing people I ever had the fortune of meeting. During this time and our nights out, we both drank very little, especially me, compared to what I consumed before and after. Instead, the excitement of exploring each other’s minds was all the rush we needed. To this day, I’m very glad that I didn’t waste this wonderful opportunity by clouding my mind too much. These memories will be among my dearest, and I will cherish them until the day I die.
I woke up many times after a night out and the only question running through my mind was:
“Why did I do this to myself?”
If you drink, your sleep quality is shit, that’s an open secret. And even though I was one of the lucky people who don’t experience typical hangovers, the day after heavy drinking still often feels like a slog.
But there was also something else happening: I didn’t drink anymore to experience unique flavours on my tongue but to simply have a drink because that’s what people to. Or so I told myself. The last time I went out, everything I drank felt so mundane, no matter the quality. Maybe the whole month sober already left its mark by disconnecting me from what I previously considered a part of my personality (more on that in a bit). But the whole ordeal started to feel completely pointless to me. And as I was sitting there, a few days later, I realized that I had zero desire to taste any of the stuff on display.
And then it dawned on me. Something that had been in the back of my head for years but more in my focus for the past few months. The one identity to which I subscribed to for years was…suddenly gone. I’ve worked as a bartender for the better part of my adult life. For more than seven years I gave this industry my soul, pushed my body and mind to its limit to be able to work among the best of my peers. For a long time, this work was my calling, even though I always knew I had an expiration date.
That date came about four years ago, when I was lucky enough to get a call from a friend who invited me to work on a project, there I met another guy (again) who’s now a friend and happens to be my boss and the rest is history, as they say.
But my sense of identity was screwed. Thrown into a completely different work environment with new challenges, I adapted on the outside but internally I became more and more lost. Over the years I started to realize what I had given up or neglected. Activities that brought me tremendous joy lay barren.
Then the days, weeks and months after I met a particular person two years ago happened. She vanished and I became trapped in pure agony. I don’t hold it against her, she had her own demons to fight and it was simply how my mind would react to a situation like that. But amidst my despair I understood something. I will always meet troubled people. They are the kind of people I gravitate towards. And these experiences will continue to be as beautiful as they are painful. Orchids engulfed in fire.
But I can learn to bear the heat, not be crippled by it. With time and care, nurture the beauty and extinguish the flames.
One of my chosen methods of creating a version of me that was better suited for difficult times ahead was quite the strict workout regimen. Which brings me to my night in the bar and its epiphany.
In this moment, I understood that the last strings which connected me to my previous identity of a bartender and, in consequence, someone who regularly sits in bars and consumes copious amounts of alcohol had vanished. And I understood something else: my sense of identity was strongly connected to the story I wanted to tell about myself – or, to be more precise – a story I wanted to identify with. If I wanted to assume another identity, I had to find a different narrative first. A better one.
The Power Of Narratives
Our actions define our narratives and in consequence our identities. I always loved sports. I started training martial-arts when I was six years old and, with only a few breaks in-between, didn’t stop until I was twenty. And I was pretty good at it, even won a few championships. Then, uni, bartending, my fucked up mental health and a bunch of other shit happened.
At this night in the bar my mind made me aware of something so obvious but profound:
“The life I’m living is not congruent with the story I want to tell.”
Sure, I had a well-structured workout routine in place. But how many times did I train hard for hours, just to shower, get dressed and head to a bar to celebrate a weekend, a day off or whatever excuse I could think of? Too many.
And there was another glaring issue: for a long time, I had almost exclusively focused on strength training. I looked reasonably big, not massive by any means, but there was definitely some size, but I had the stamina of a chain smoker or maybe even worse.
I needed to adjust my behaviour to fit the new narrative. What was it? Simple: I wanted to be a better athlete. Being able to bench quite a bit while being out of breath after walking a few stairs is an embarrassing combination. To support this narrative, I had already implemented a new conditioning workout into my schedule a few weeks ago, adjusted my diet to even better align with my requirements and to quit drinking was an obvious last step at this point.
When I walk through the city, I see so many out of shape or outright obese people and each of them is a reminder of the person I never want to be. In my head, I give a nod of respect to every runner I encounter while my mind thinks “You got this, I know it’s hard, but I believe in you”.
In essence, I’m adjusting my behaviour to be as strongly aligned with my narrative as possible. But being a better athlete is not the only one. Since I started to understand the power of narratives, I also used it to become a better philosopher by idling less and reading more. I’m also working on becoming a better writer by…well, you guessed it, writing more. This piece is my first evidence and others will follow.
I didn’t choose the other two narratives to illustrate my point, because I don’t think they make such a compelling story as my battle with and against something that had been an integral part of my life for over a decade now. Is this battle over? Honestly, I don’t know. I’m confident in my ability in walking this new path for quite some time but I’m also writing this at a time when my mind has started to untangle itself.
Currently, I’ve a much clearer vision of the person I want to be and how to get there – that’s a big change compared to just a few weeks ago. Back then, I was also dealing with another issue and I had the wildest ideas about possible reasons and how to resolve them. I even started writing some rough essay drafts but these will probably never see the light of day. Trust me, it’s for the better.
A Hero’s Journey
Before I end, a few words about the chosen title for this piece. Some people will have recognized that it’s the same as Joseph Campbell’s foundational work about his search for the so-called monomyth. A reoccurring idea across cultures and civilizations and how we, as humans, tend to tell stories and why we value a good ending.
In online culture, there is this mock phrase of the “main character syndrome” – usually depicting someone with an inflated ego who thinks only his or her opinion matters. While there are certainly people like that among us – yours truly definitely had his fair share of being part of said subculture – the root idea should maybe not be dismissed too quickly.
What is life other than a concatenation of narratives? Short episodes we experience in which we play the lead role while others play their lead just from a different point of view.
It is reasonable to assume that you are the main character of your story because…well, you are. Nobody else can take that role from you. Even when you become part of a trend on certain social media platforms to display an NPC – a non-player character – you are still acting as the main character of your story to showcase this performance.
In other words: you are as much the main character as you are the hero. Or protagonist. Or chosen one. Or whatever you want to call yourself. That doesn’t mean that the world around you or the people in it don’t matter, quite the contrary. They shape your experiences and provide you with the sensory input to further refine your story.
Life is hard. None of us chose this, yet here we are. Storytelling is hard. Writing is hard. Directing is hard. Acting is hard. But you have to do all of that and so much more to create a story worth telling. To find a narrative you can align yourself with. Often it takes time to get there. I needed years to understand this for myself. But once you get to the point where you can fully grasp what it means to redirect or create completely new narratives about yourself? Don’t ever look back.
“If I was my friend, what would I say to me?”
Find a story you enjoy and live it.
Egotheist 