June 28, 2014

June 28, 2014

The worst thing that can happen to a fellow is to lose his strong sense of identity.   As I referred to in another column, there is another person out there who shares my unusual name.  As far as I know his name is legally real and was his given name by his family.  What is the percentage that I share the exact name with another person, but also live in the same city?  I have to be honest with all of you, that this leaves me anxious.

I’m an only child in my family, and I’m not used to playing with other children, in fact there is a telling sign regarding my role in one’s world - a class picture of my elementary class, but alas, I’m not in the photo.   When I look at the photograph, I remember all my classmates as if it was yesterday.   Yet, there is no indication that I went to this class, although clearly everyone in that photograph remembers me being in school with them, yet, it is almost like I wasn’t supposed to be there.  Either by fashion or design, I’m rarely in group photographs, and I know there are people now out there who doubt that I even went to that school or class or location.

I never believed that I had a “double” or there is another “me” in the world.  Everyone who knows me, knows that I have a strong sense of character, but over time I have started to feel that I was losing myself into a haze of someone else’s making.  I have no solid facts in this matter. It is more of a mood than anything else.   On the other hand, I’m very attracted to the idea of just walking away from my life and becoming someone else.  It will be just one of the moments where I go out to get something at the market, and not come back home.  I fantasize if anyone would even notice that I was gone.  For instance, if I stop posting on Facebook, would anyone notice or cares?

Since me and my ‘double’ share a similar e-mail address, I time-to-time do get his e-mail.  Mostly from businesses, nothing ever personal in the content of the message, but every time I received these e-mails, I get the impression that I’m being pushed out of the world, which of course, causes me a sense of anxiety.  But then I wonder why fight this feeling, perhaps it is best that I go on, at the very least, it will be just an adventure.  This is not unnecessary a bad thing.  Usually in life, we lead a role that we play in, and that’s the only life we are presented with.  But alas, if we can obtain a second life or chance, to re-do or avoid certain mistakes one makes in their lifetime, would this not be a good thing?  Again, I take the dice, and throw it.  We’ll see what the numbers say.