Me, Myself and Identity

I know not who I am,

Nor where I am going.

But in short, I am afraid.

And the ceaseless cycle of self-doubt leaves me paralyzed—

Alone to confront the imminent doom that is tomorrow,

Trapped and unable to overcome these crippling anxieties

Like grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight.

O, to stay hungry and foolish,

That which I have always wished for myself!

The only language I know expresses fewer and fewer of my ripening needs;

The facts which litter my memory grow less substantial.

The figure I see in the looking-glass seems less recognizably myself.

So, where now can I look for reassurance of my identity?

My actions?

My words?

My thoughts?

My failures?

No!

They know me not;

And I know me less.

I’d rather be a Pagan

Suckled in a creed outworn,

So might I have glimpses

Of the image of eternity

Or the throne of the invisible

That would make me less forlorn

Than continue on in this incessant state of unknowing.

Sometimes, the valley—the unending toil of life—is filled with tears

And sometimes, the road is hot with the sun

But I have to keep on.

I have to keep on till my work is done.

And I keep trudging on through the lonely years:

I have to keep on and remember,

All that which we behold

Is full of blessings.

I don’t want comfort.

I want real danger.

I want freedom.

I want goodness.

I want poetry.

I want God.

I want sin.

But I do not want comfort.

So I keep on till my work is done

And rage, rage against the dying of the light.

I beat on, a boat against the current,

Borne back ceaselessly into the past.

Yet, there is time

Between the essence

And the descent.

In a minute there is time

For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

Time for you and time for me,

Where blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay

And time yet for a hundred indecisions,

And for a hundred visions and revisions

Which are gone in a moment’s time.

Suspended in the infinite darkness of hesitant action,

Unknowing of what is and what is still to come.

And as if it’s not enough for me

To deal with these daunting tasks and decisions,

Which ultimately lead me to my future

Everyone is constantly prying

Badgering and bombarding me with questions:

“Where are you going?”

“What are you doing?”

“What do you want to do?”

I don’t know!

Is it not enough to simply leave it at that?

What do they want from me

And why must they trouble me so?

Do I dare disturb the universe?

There falls the shadow.

Am I going to be a person of heart and humanity,

Or am I going to do whatever seems to be required of me?

Is this the way the world ends—

Not with a bang, but a whimper?

Ah, what a piece of work am I,

How noble in reason,

How infinite in faculties,

How express and admirable in form and moving,

In action how like an angel,

In apprehension how like a god.

But what am I?

Let me have lazy days to seek my deeper motives;

Let me seek deep for where I am a born natural.

Or leave me to drown in the wake of my lost identity.

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With increasing consistency, I find myself wondering if I truly know myself or if I know only what I want to know about myself. I started to second-guess my nature, and find myself feeling lost quite frequently. And I wonder if others experience similar identity crises; so I ask, How does identity, or a lack thereof, influence one's actions?