If I asked you to list some of the things you love, what would you include?
There are some things I could tell you that I loved right away without thinking much about it:
- Diet Pepsi
- all music by Tori Amos
- antique maps
- french fries
- paintings by Vermeer
- the color green
- orchids
- bright early mornings (which we haven’t had many of this month!)
While these things make me smile and feel happy, they are also important aspects of my authentic identity. The things you love (note: we are not talking about people here, just things) are part of who you are and how you define yourself both internally and externally. In order to really know yourself - really be authentic – you need to have a firm grasp on what really has meaning to you.
I started thinking about the relationship between what you love and authenticity last night as I was flipping through my DVD collection. At the back of the big CD binder I keep all my discs in, I found my collection of X-Files DVDS.
Yes, I said it right. The X-Files. That Sci-Fi TV show from the early 90’s that starred David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson. The show that has that creepy intro music. That show that I absolutely, positively, and ’til death do us part adore.
I first started watching the X-files in 1997 or ‘98 during those awkward middle school years where I didn’t really fit in with any crowd and felt totally awkward in my own skin. I thought the show was cool, complex, and of course had a hunky star. I remember while the other kids in my class were at parties trying their first beers and going to makeout bases I had no idea about yet, I’d be hanging around at home watching the X-Files marathon on TV. I even had a fanfiction website called “Stars of a Midsummer’s Night,” that was just recently destroyed in the GeoCities shutdown.
I was a huge fan. And what I realized last night as I was nostalgically looking at my DVDs from season 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6, is that I still am.
In my mid-teenage years, I drifted away from the “Files” a bit as I felt very conscious of how nerdy my love of them were. My boyfriend at the time used to tease me about liking the show, and even more about my website (telling him was clearly a mistake!). I was conditioned into being embarrassed about enjoying the X-Files, and over time convinced myself that I had “outgrown that phase” in my life.
When my college roommate confessed to me how much she like the X-Files too, my feelings for the show were slightly rekindled, yet I kept a lid on my enthusiasm and after she graduated I reburied my passion because cool, sophisticated, and successful young women didn’t come home after work and watch X-Files while sketching, they went out and did other things.
And we all know how well those other things worked out for making me feel happy, fulfilled and authentic!
What I realized last night is that no matter how or why I try to deny it, my love of the X-Files is real, as dorky, nerdy, and goofy as that actually is. And because I love the X-Files, they are a part of who I am and who my authentic self is. Pretending I don’t like them or conditioning myself to think they are uncool is the same thing as pointless as telling myself I’ll be happy working in a corporate job again. It just isn’t who I am.
You may be thinking to yourself, “Wow, was this post really just about her geeky love for the X-Files?” The answer, my uncommon friends, is no.
My experience with the X-Files is merely an example of the relationship between what we love and who we are. As you continue on your journey to become more authentic take a minute to think about what you love right now, and what you have loved in the past. Have things fallen off your list over time? Why? How do you really feel about them today, all programming and conditioning aside?
Getting in touch with and being able to clearly identify what you really love can help you understand who you really are. Who am I? I’m a girl who’s about to rewatch the X-Files series, and love every minute of it.
So, what do you love?
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Awesome post! I do this every time I feel a little lost and adrift with my writing and need to refocus it a little bit. Stuff I love? Period drama movies, like Pride and Prejudice, The Princess Bride, and Robin Hood Prince of Thieves. I read over old notebooks, hit the ocean for a little while and get back to the core of what I love. Great idea, Nacie!
Twitter: evanhadkins
Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue
Georges Simenon’s Maigret Novels
The director’s cut of Apocalypse Now.
Perls Hefferline and Goodman’s Gestalt Therapy.
The Beatles, Pink Floyd and Talking Heads.
Dennis Potter’s The Singing Detective.
The music of JS Bach.
Doing counselling.
I think these are my biggest ones.
Evan, what a great list! Do you feel like your awareness of these things makes you more authentic?
Huzzah for Kind of Blue!
Hey AC, I totally agree with you about the ocean – will have to add it to my list of loves. Just getting back there, touching it, is like touching base in a way. Awesome list
Nice Articles, thanks for this, looking forward to your next post. Keep your good work.