Names

Today, at work I had to look up a woman's account - this requires having them input their social security number into a pinpad. I requested she provided it at the pinpad and her daughter asked what that number was, it's interesting the chain reaction this question triggered in my mind.

Initially, I begun thinking about how a social security number was a number assigned to each person when they were born and it proves that you are who you say you are. Following this primary thought was a thought about how names are just a word assigned to us at birth to let people know what we are called.

A noise. Your name is just a noise people make to symbolize you. Which really started leading me to some super ancient Chinese secret type shit where I began asking myself "who am I?".

Typically I could just go with the classic "I'm Umar." - but given the previous claims I don't think that will suffice. This is an incredible question because it really breaks the mindset of the generation I'm lumped into, the mindset being self-entitled. To take an exoteric look at oneself, and provide an explanation beyond titles.

I am a son, I am a brother, a cousin, a grandson, and any other male family title. Still stuck on titles.

I am the lessons that I have received.
I am able to create, and I am able to destroy.
I am full of fear, frustration, inquisition, and joy.
Time is the one that leaves me most decieved.

Too cheesy, poetry has too serious of a tone.

Okay I got it:

Each point in time is made up of an endless history of dichotomy. If you honestly take any one point in time, you can root it back to a tree of decisions. Here, I will even draw for you.

Now, if you look at the picture you can see everything is a yes/no question. There might be some relatively complex decisions you make in life but you can always root it back with yes/no questions like this. Life is an interesting dichotomy itself, and no matter how much you argue I will never settle to agree that life is more complex than a massive series of yes/no reactions from an individual. Makes story telling a lot more shitty for me to try and appreciate. So back to "who am I?"

I am the result of countless yes/no questions starting from the moment I was born, I would be a different person if a single one of these dichotomy's presented to me had been reacted to differently. For some I would be a drastically different person, and for some I would essentially be the same.

I am the boy that fails to see himself as a man, not for lack of confidence or pride issues, but because of my fear of time. I am a boy that often finds himself feeling alone, but doesn't want to let anyone close enough to get rid of that feeling because of his fear of feeling alone again. I am a boy that stayed inside and drew a dichotomous key about eating a sandwich instead of going out with friends on a friday night. I am me.