Identity

I keep seeing an admonitory advert on the Internet of the dangers of not protecting my "identity" from would-be thieves. There exists a phenomenon known as "identity theft", in which your "identity" - the sixteen-digit number assigned to you by your bank that allows you to spend money you don't actually have - is used by some third party to make a series of lavish purchases while you get stuck with the bill. As I am the proud (?) owner of one of these slips of plastic bearing one of these numbers, I suppose I should be vigilant against potential "identity thieves", but I have to ask: what is it I am protecting, and what exactly is my "identity"?

During my twenty-eight years, four months and seventeen days in this human form, the concept of "identity" has probably been one of the most, if not the most, obfuscating. I've spent the last few years trying to find just who I am... on second thought, I've been doing this my whole life, and I don't suppose it should yield before I'm dead and gone.

The best place to start would be with the name I was assigned at birth and the sky blue linens in which I was clad to denote the set of reproductive organs that came with the package. As far as memory serves me, my first encounter with "identity" must have been the six-letter, single-syllable word hollered at me to garner my attention. Upon entry into the schoolyard herd, I was branded with a new label based on my attributes. I became the "brain", the "nerd", the "geek", given my ability to spell and solve math problems. I soon learned that such standing, while affording heaps of financial potential later in life, ranked at the bottom of the schoolyard food chain, thus I was eager to exchange my moniker for one of the ones the popular kids had, one boys would revere and to which girls would be attracted. Along the way (particularly as we approached our pubescent years), skin colour, socioeconomic status and taste in music/clothing/etc. became more salient: the preppy White kids congregated, as did the poor Black kids; and if any White girl happened to fancy a Black boy, she was assigned a brand of her own, much like the red "A" in The Scarlet Letter, but more resembling a Black penis, thus signifying to the White boys that she was somehow tainted.

My introduction to numerical "identity" came soon after graduation from the eighth grade, at which time, I was assigned a "social insurance number": nine digits indicative of my readiness to toil for White Man's capital. Shortly thereafter, I successfully opened my first bank account - on my own, that is, for my mother opened an account for me upon my egress from her womb - another ten digits to remember, plus my four-digit PIN, or "personal identification number". Oh, so many numbers swirling in my head; will I be able to remember them all? Wait: there are more! I was in high school now, and as such, I was identified by a six-digit number. When I turned eighteen, my first credit card arrived... and my second: thirty-two more digits. What's more, I gained admission into university, and with that, another nine-digit number by which I was to be identified (and, subsequently, another nine-digit number upon my return to university). Then came the jobs, and more numbers with them, but at least I also had snazzy titles by which to call myself, such as "research assistant" or "intern" or "engineer" or "project manager". Lest I forget, with adulthood comes bills to keep the lights and gadgets on, and bills to keep the house warm during the winter months, and bills for just about everything else, each containing a distinct string of digits to which my person is assigned.

I trust you can empathize with my identity crisis... that is, if you find yourself overwhelmed by it all. I suppose it's better (or merely easier) to not cogitate this subject, but alas, I cannot help myself, for I am confused. Who am I? How on Earth do I identify myself?

Better still, how do you identify yourself? Are you a doctor, a lawyer, a sanitation worker? Are you a metal head, a punk, a hipster, a hip-hopper? Are you the tattoos on your arms, the colour of your skin, the garments you wear, the roadster in your driveway? Are you your country of origin, your parents country of origin? Are you your government, your head of state, your flag?

Twenty-eight-plus years I've spent traversing the road to "identity", and all I've discovered is that it can be a meandering road to nowhere, especially since the answer to this quandary has been within me the whole time I was seeking it elsewhere. All this you see - the clothes, the house, the numbers on my banking statement, the very words on this page - are not me; perhaps they're a reflection of some part of me, which is why your perception of "me" will differ immensely from that of the next person, as you have so little information from which to draw your inferences. Only now, after months of spiritual guidance on the journey to myself, do I appreciate what "identity" is; hopefully, there will come a time, if not already, that you, too, will embark on a similar endeavour.

Let them have my credit card number, and my bank account number, and my student number, and my social insurance number, and my telephone number, and my driver's license number, and my passport number, and my house number, for I am not them, and they are not me. If you wish to see me, or anyone else for that matter, you won't find them on a résumé or a computer database, nor will you find them when select what qualities in a person you desire most while disregarding the rest.

Here, I shall pause to apologize for how didactic I seem. I don't mean to point my finger at you, for I am guilty of the same error. What I hope to convey is, your veneer is not who you are, so fear not the possibility of "identity theft"; no one can steal your identity.

(And once again, I shall pat myself on the back for yet another edition of my sparsely-read but well-loved log.)