Tinkering with the Personality I Never Wanted
What a childhood toy reminded me this Christmas.
Walking through a Toys 'R' Us, I stopped beside the aisle my 12-year-old eyes could never turn away from. LEGO. And Star Wars at that.
My entire Christmas list was developed around the likelihood of what sets could be had based on what it appeared Santa *coughs* my parents were able to afford in previous years. Not to mention the assembled armies amassed between me and my brother. A collection that paid no mind to what trilogy each belonged. All that mattered was whether they were good or evil.
So, that Republic gunship made my list and the Imperial tie fighter made his. For good measure, he asked for an Imperial walker too. Better odds to win, and a sick set to piece together.
Needless to say, my inner child rejoiced when I shook the wrapped options in the stockings over the mantle, to hear a familiar clanking of plastic moldings and plastic wrapping. Not then, but this year, with my wife beside me.
Growing up, my mom’s inherited tradition was to have seven stocking gifts magically appear on the 18th of December. An abridged advent calendar. Each day, my brother and I would select a gift of our choice.
My wife, being amazing as she is at recall, drew from my reminiscing stories from Christmases of yore and included such a gift as we continue in my family’s traditions.
The outcome, pictured above, was a joy 62 bricks in the making. And a sudden epiphany: I’ve been fooling myself.
I’m a thinker. I’m the type who exhausts a topic in all its entirety. Dinosaurs, named way more than I should have before the age of 8. Rollercoasters, borrowed library books and every amusement park map to read up on all their thrill rides, despite not liking even the butterflies of Splash Mountain drops until I was a teen.
But, I’m also a creative. I’m the type who can get lost in novels of fiction and transport myself to other worlds and gladly stay there for awhile. And then write about them, like when I took the concept of a wardrobe leading to Narnia and had VHS boxes lead to their respective film locations.
My former type though, fits more with what is expected culturally in the US. Academia authorizes. Dollar signs validate. And the average creative far too often has been asked,
“You want to do what and skip where?”
Add to that a part of me who keeps the peace, and I succumbed to abstract thinking and theorizing and specialization when career chats started rumbling early in high school.
Compound these upon mentors who encouraged the same, and drawing pencils are replaced with communication theories and DVD cases are replaced with theologizing. Don’t get me wrong, I love being a thinker; but I have neglected half of what makes me over the last decade or so.
I couldn’t totally disconnect from that part of me. The nerd kept sneaking outside my defenses. He’d appear when I would get lost to hours of Adobe Illustrator. He’d be the one ordering my Instagram feed to have it appear visually appealing instead of simply what happened the day of. Needless to say, #latergram is his best friend.
Building little Ani reminded me of this person I locked away. The title nerd that I tried to shake off like a flimsy sticker. But he doesn’t need to be neglected or withheld. He needs me to be kind.
Kindness. A disposition to do good. An ability to understand.
I could say I understand interpersonal communication. Cultural intelligence. Community education. Yet misunderstand myself.
Isn’t that what we all struggle with? Being kind to who we are? We theorize ourselves. Seek to understand our genetics and environments. But we don’t celebrate who we are.
I’m not just a thinker. Just as I’m not just a creative. I’m both. Every moment I only embrace half, I lessen what I offer my family, my neighbors and my workplace.
Who have you lessened in yourself? What influencers define you more than who you find yourself to be today?
It’s okay if you don’t know. I’m still figuring it out. But I’m finding I don’t need the answer. They’re good questions to ask, but my life isn’t defined by their answers. My problem won’t be pouring myself out in kindness to others. It will be sustaining myself to keep doing so longer than the past decade that has drained me more than I realized.
Like the myths of soulmates only half of a person until they come together, dyads of life, I need all of me. And I think culture needs all of us.
So, go build a bit. Dream a bit. Play a bit. The world will do just fine while you do, and might even recover some of its weary soul.
