Article June 18, 2007 Issue

WHAT TRULY IDENTIFIES YOU?

BY CHANNING WALKER

RECENTLY a friend gave me a tour of Myspace.com, where we viewed a number of personal profiles. I found out this website is a regular stop for almost 200 million people, many of them representing today's youth. That's a huge subsection of society. Anyone can create a MySpace page to showcase him- or herself through collages of photos, listings of favorites (movies, songs, sports teams), thoughts, blogs, you name it. People can even post recordings of their own music, or make a pitch for a favorite cause.

Each page was unique, and as I looked at them, I found myself pondering how we identify ourselves. What are the actual forces we allow to shape our individual identities? Many things can come into play.

On the plus side, for instance, is the widespread feeling that at heart people can be identified as caring and compassionate, ready to help a neighbor, even from halfway around the globe. On the minus side, there are forces like the media bombardment which asserts our identity and worth start and stop with physicality, and especially with our sexual prowess and appeal. These forces are so constant they're easy to miss, a bit like the ever-present smog in a big city—after a while, you kind of forget it's there.