A few months ago, I grew very wary of humanity. As a person who is very passionate about the increasing the wellness of those around me through political reforms or open dialogue, I found the idea that we all live in our own paradigms to be threatening. It frightened me to think that everyone has a different perception of their surroundings and a story that I will never have enough time to fully know. I devoted so much time to being bogged down in the multiplicity of population that I could not possibly fathom understanding the multiplicity of identity.
The phrase"multiplicity of identity" (best explained by creator and intellectual, Rian Phin) refers to the idea that humans are capable of expressing a seemingly infinite amount of personality traits. We can be rebellious on Monday and whimsical on Tuesday. We can be gregarious one minute and shy the next. Because we are all constantly growing, very few personality traits remain entirely stagnant. I am elusive and ebullient on days where my life seems to promise me eternal fulfillment, but that does not mean my moodiness is drastically out of character when life squeezes lemon juice in my eyes. My personality does not have to make any overarching statement or be accessible to people who have no intentions of truly knowing me. I no longer feel a need to simplify myself because the ones who truly want to know me, will.
An old friend once told me that I am "every single personality wrapped in one". I have meditated on this frequently since the day, because she was merely one of many people to tell me similar things. I used to be slightly alarmed by these statements- after all, how was anyone supposed to understand me if my presence itself was such an enigma? Am I just too vapid to offer a solid personality to the world? What I had such a hard time comprehending was that my multiplicity of identity lies in something so much more genuine to my state of being than what anyone can fully grasp. Despite this, by no means am I more complex than anyone else- we all have personalities that are often incapable of being truly understood. I am complicated, but aren't we all?
The best thing we can do is try to understand as much as we can and allow that knowledge to manifest into something greater. I believe that the only things we will all experience are passion and pain. Ask your closest friends to tell you about a time they felt love most authentically and then about a time they lost that love. Then ask a stranger on the bus the same requests- everyone will have stories. Love has the power and abundance to transcend multiplicity, for everyone experiences love and its absence.
Respecting today's modern political sphere, I do not feel comfortable by any means, but I do feel united. The universal stories of love and loss we all have written through our experiences may truly be the only medicine we have right now. Use your multiplicity to relate to others in this scary period of uncertainty. We hold the power to be empathetic to those who need it while simultaneously criticizing those who act unjustly. Our identities are not to be simplified, but to be embraced as complex entities that morph, work, learn- and most importantly- love.
