You are what you are?

A couple of days ago we (three of us who shall remain nameless, save for me) had a conversation about the influence of one's physiology (height, weight, body-type, and other genetic endowments) on one's personality and sense of self. We got onto to this because one of us (S) was planning to club-hop in the city, as a way of celebrating a friend's 18th birthday. Another one of us (M) wondered what the attraction was in this sort of behaviour, as she had never been interested in it. S conceded that most of these clubs were meat markets and that some of them actually have women pole-dancing. So somehow the conversation came around to how these kinds of places sell a certain kind of ideal. Although not everyone who goes will meet (or even approach) this ideal, the striving for, and belief in, the ideal (the Royal Flush, the four Aces, whatever) is in play. Unlike most poker games however, everyone's playing "heads up" (that is, everyone's cards are face up - we all know who's got what). So the game really is rigged, from the get-go. Of course, depending on one's ability to overlook one's own deficiencies, or the deficiencies of another, there is some wiggle-room (No pun intended? I dare you to start a night club chain called the "Wiggle Room". Maybe you could open up a chain of them next door to those "Curves" exercise places).

It is my opinion that your sense of self (ego, self-esteem, confidence) is intertwined with your physiology. That is, if I was six inches taller I would be a different person than I am now. I got some flak for this from M, who felt that one's personality can be quite independent of one's physical characteristics. I then suggested that it takes a mature, and usually older, person to accept one's natural state, and "live above it" as it were. That is, it's only after I reach a kind of resignation about my physical limits and "shortcomings" (if they are shortcomings at all, except that some elements of our society say that my shortness is a deficiency of some kind) that I can ignore the so-called ideal, and play the hand that I've been dealt.

Many anthropologists also contend that human societies are shaped by their environments. Well yesterday and today, with the wind a-blowing steady, I had a hard time getting done the things I'd hoped to get done. I just couldn't focus, and felt like it wasn't worth it to battle through it. I did ride bike to town (into the SW wind) to pick up the car from West Park, but that was enough. That, today, was kind of an accomplishment. If I lived in a place where the wind was that strong and constant, I think that would change me. It might make me more persistent, or my eardrums would callous over from the constant whooshing sounds, or my head would get more sleek and aerodynamic. Maybe I'd live in a house that wasn't 35 feet high. Maybe we'd come to love the wind and as a society we'd develop 50 different ways to describe the wind: gentle, biting, breezy, warm, cool, cold, moist, dry, high, low, swirling, sighing, north, south, westerly, easterly, and so on. (It's a bit ominous that I can come-up with 16 ways, just like that - maybe we are people of the wind.)

All this is to say that much of who we are and what we do is influenced by things that are out of our control. We can move ahead despite these things, but we can't ignore them. They are obstacles that must be overcome, or accepted and integrated into our being.