Still Life, Still Born


Who are you?  

No, I don’t mean your name or your profile data.  I mean:  who ARE you?

Today’s individuals’ leitmotiv is building one’s Identity.  It’s what we use to choose and get a romantic partner, land a job, keep the social circle turning, and so on and so forth.  As “man is a social animal” and 21st century Westerners are hyper-individuals, Identity is the connector allowing each of us our room for personal uniqueness and the reassurance of belonging.  Indeed, self-fulfillment, thus happiness, seems entirely elusive without first defining one’s Identity.

Fine.

But since the postmodernist breakdown of institutions/traditions and the internet’s transgression of spatial, temporal, and physical boundaries, Identity has become a tricky matter within a context of infinite possibility.  Increasingly, we seem victims of too much or too little Identity.  Balancing between fear of losing oneself to a relationship and the tactics of wielding multiple avatars, we seem to be rigidifying our fabricated, projective identities… potentially to the point of skimping on building our real-life inner selves. 

Could it be that our quest for Identity is precisely what is stifling our personal “growth”?  “Still Life, Still Born” will take on the debate.
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What Are the Unintended Consequences of How We Are Living?

What progress! The woman’s movement has changed society profoundly.

When a girl is born, she has the possibility of becoming President of her country. She can lead her life as she pleases, she can “have it all” or “have it small”, it’s just a question of choice. The Pursuit of Happiness is at last her own to pursue and achieve. If she doesn’t, she only has herself to blame.

Right?

This expectation of, or even entitlement to, liberty and self-fulfillment has hit a new wall: up against 21st century Western postmodernism and crisis, there are new challenges within the home, the workplace, and the social circle that are altering Gen Y women’s access to their objectives and expectations. While some poster girls are making it to the top and having it all, the vast majority of women are coming up disappointed and/or resigned despite what should be a fortuitous context.

Could it be that the ways we are pursuing our goals of self-fulfillment (autonomy, liberty of choice, and control over one’s life) are precisely what will prevent us from achieving that fulfillment? Could this be our new feminine mystique?

This blog’s intention is to converse with you, women and men of the 21st century, in order for us, communally, to gain awareness of our acts, their consequences, and to sketch a new form of society we wish to build together. Laws will not make the change but we will. It is no small task but if ever there were a more pertinent time or context, it is now.