Define yourself or someone else will do it for you
I grew up an only child and spent many formative hours alone. I learned to occupy myself by playing with action figures, learning magic tricks, and growing vegetables (in Harvest Moon 64).
My mind was a cozy place. There were no siblings to fight with, so I could afford to take my time thinking and speaking. There was no pressure to stick my hand out and have an opinion, even if only to preempt or oppose a rival.
As I grew up, this tendency to ruminate became an obstacle to acting decisively or forming opinions. I hovered around the edges of political debates because I never felt like I had enough information to make a compelling argument. I read endless product reviews and seemed to suffer from buyer's remorse before even making a purchase.
I could usually talk myself through tough moments in life, so there wasn't much incentive to reach out. I rarely confided in others. The answer to this or that anxiety was a few logical steps away, and it was only a matter of discipline to apply the solution. This mindset actually turned out to be a big help during the Covid lockdown.
There was one fear that I couldn't reason away, and that was of being the center of attention. This broke the spell. I needed the camera to be pointed at someone else so I could ruminate. To act or react quickly was against my nature.
I developed a sort of amicable aloofness. A "resting nice face". I didn't want to be conspicuous or readable because I felt like that amounted to betraying my thoughts. The goal: emotional privacy without completely alienating others. Like a wallflower. A scentless, beige, wallflower. Why is it smiling? That's just its face.
A self-attuned mind may seem virtuous, but in my case it was like an immune system that never rolled in the dirt. A tennis player who only rallied with a backboard. Inbred thoughts. I struggled to form strong opinions because I never shared my imperfect, incomplete ideas with others. That put me in a vulnerable place. Exposed to criticism and maybe even confrontation.
But then I thought: the moments I've felt closest to others are specifically those times when they've been vulnerable with me. The people I've found easiest to talk to are those who volunteer their imperfect, incomplete ideas as if to say "hey, I'm still figuring this shit out, too."
And the final boss of imperfect, incomplete ideas is "who am I?"
In that hermetically-sealed chamber of a cozy mind, I can pretend I know who I am. But I really don't know. I can't know until I scream it from a rooftop and inspire some other soul to say "No way!" or "Me too!" or "What do you mean?" To bounce off, ricochet, get dirty, cross-germinate.
I never really thought about these things until I moved to a new city where I knew absolutely no one. I had to start from zero to meet new people and decide who exactly I was putting out there. I no longer had the benefit of a hometown with high school friends and shared histories.
So I had this blank slate, but my instinct was once again to keep it close to my chest. I would reinvent myself to myself. Rearrange the furniture in my psychological doomsday bunker.
But then something happened1.
A coworker made a comment about me in front of our group during lunch. I don't recall exactly what it was, but it was something innocuous like "Nate's such a party animal!" And I thought ...I am exactly the opposite of that. I'm a total homebody. I like podcasts and fantasy novels.
The natural thing to do at this point is to speak up and set the record straight. Even for a harmless little comment like that, I could say "No way, man. I'm a total homebody! I like podcasts and fantasy novels!" But in my head (that zen rock garden where none shall tread) my first instinct was to just leave it. Smile, laugh, nod. I knew the truth, and wasn't that enough? What did I care what they thought?
I felt that refuting someone else's claim about me was like cleaning up their mess. Wasn't that their problem? It felt like handing them power by implying that their words disturbed me enough to lure me from my fortress and into the open field. I'm being dramatic, but this wasn't far off from my "inbred thought" logic.
What I came to realize was that by withholding information about myself from the group, I was allowing someone else's speculation to enter the record instead. I was in fact handing them power by not coming out of my fortress and taking a stand (dramatic soundtrack).
People work with the incomplete information they have. I wasn't doing myself any favors by stonewalling those who were making a good-faith attempt to get to know me. They were simply filling in the gaps as best they could. Our little oral history was being written with or without my participation.
So I thought, ok, I may be shy and reserved but I'm not trying to be upstaged by an impostor. I can't let this little homunculus-ass voodoo doll version of me be canonized and convince everyone that I do tequila shots at the club on Tuesdays2.
I decided to invest a little more in the perception of me being carried around by others. Rather than hoping they arrive at the right conclusions on their own, I'm inviting them into my space to get a first-hand look. Everything that follows becomes more authentic.
It's scary to be at the mercy of others - to want their acceptance or understanding. But no one else is going to stump for me, and nor should they.
I'm still learning to speak up more often and dip my toe into conversations where I feel out of my depth. It's still an uncomfortable place for me to be, but I always come out the other side with a clearer sense of what I do and don't believe.
Likewise each time I speak up for myself, I shine a little more light on my character (for better or worse). Whether or not I fit into the narrative of other lives is a question with a clearer answer. That's how I'm trying to find my people.
I don't think that a stoic mindset and emotional availability are mutually exclusive. That's a pendulum I had to swing the other way to work on myself. I'm still a quiet guy with hangups about this or that. But sometimes, when I hear squabbling in the square of public opinion, I roll up my sleeves and get a little dirty.
Shots, anyone?