Episode 6: On Identity And These Changing Times!

Yeah, we're on six. We're on six. It's. It's been a wild ride. I mean, the other podcast that I was doing, we're still on episode three. We just. I feel like I'm cheating on the other guy with you because we started before this one, but we've gone so far with this episode, with this podcast that it feels like that one was the. Is like the side project and this is the main thing, but Potatoes. Potatoes. I think the best way to start this episode, we'll be talking about finding one's self in a world where we are always lost. I think the best way to start this episode is with. I don't want to say it's a prayer, but with a quote from one of the wisest young administrators that I've ever known. And it goes, God, please help me to continue to be myself. And I think that's very profound, one would say, especially for such a young boy who has not probably not experienced a lot of like, you know, 30 years of life, 77 years of life, and knows to pray. That prayer, because no matter how we look at is increasingly important to be rooted in one's own self, in one's own identity, regardless of whatever the world is shouting at you. Because again, coming off of last. Last episode, the. The social media landscape is so. It's so loud these days and filled with so many different voices that you tend to get lost. You know, you come on social media, which is supposed to be the homework of information, and you are met with opinions more than facts. You are met with. Which is not necessarily. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. But it becomes dangerous when opinions are made to seem like facts and where writers will present lies to you as truths. And if you are not, if you don't have that fundamental. If you don't have that foundation of identity, it is something that is easy, that makes you very, very prone to fall. So, yeah, what are your thoughts on. On this?

English is a lie.

I think. I think it was an interesting point you raised about, you know, what gives you that power to. If what you believe in is true, then why don't you agree with me that what I believe in is true? And I think it leads me to my point about generalization being the greatest problem in this day and age. Some people will argue that it is polarization, but I would argue that polarization is born out of somebody having one idea and saying, you know what? That's how it should be for everybody else. And then polarization is now that phenomenon that happens when it's like, oh, there are people that don't agree with me. Come on. Then we now start dividing ourselves into groups and saying, you know what? This is the left and this is the right, and, you know, these are the battists. And these are the obedience and all of that. And I think it's very, very important. And it seems like we are carrying on the same themes across a lot of our, across a lot of the topics that we are talking about. But on the quest for identity and finding oneself, it is perhaps the most important time to ponder on looking at things on a case to case basis on an individual level.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, I agree with that. Because the thing with elitism is that you are in your bubble so much that you forget that other people do not have the same parameters of life as you do. Say, for instance, you grew up with a complete family. You know, a father, mother, siblings. And you forget that there are people who. They never met their fathers, or their father died before they were born, or their mothers died at birth, or they are orphans or, you know, just all these different parameters. And you cannot now say, you know, that, oh, yeah, I am where I am. What's your excuse? You know, because, again, the parameters of life are different. You went to different schools. You were exposed to different things. You grew up on different kinds of television, if the other person even grew up on television at all. You know, there are so many different elements to it. And I think, again, I think this sort of leads us into a kind of like nature versus nurture on identity conversation, where we are, we begin to ask ourselves, you know, before I even say, oh, this is who I am, I must first understand what is my core essence? What is my primary nature. Am I a person of the arts? Am I a person of science? Am I a person of, you know, divine spirituality and a seeker of true enlightenment, you know, Or. Or am I an administrator? All of that, and then being able to ask yourself, okay, am I this way because that's just who I am? Or were there factors in my upbringing that have sort of led me to these paths? What moves did I make that brought me here? You know, and for some people, one part of this phenomenon, nature or Nurture is more predominant. Some people that grew up around people speaking a certain way. And I think that's probably, like, true on a general level where your speaking accent is determined by who you grew up, who you grew up around. On YouTube yesterday, I found this Nigerian guy that was speaking with a Scottish accent. And it was very. It broke my brain a little bit because, like, I've seen Nigerian people speak with British accents and American accents and all the other accents, but then, like, this Scottish accent was like, oh, my God, like, if you asked me about a Nigerian person with a Scottish accent, I would tell you they do not exist. Because I've sort of, sort of generalized that, oh, you know, that's what's happening, which is very hilarious because Nigerians are everywhere, so they speak every. All the languages. So, yeah, I do think that in finding oneself, the question of nature versus nurture is also very important. I don't know to what extent nurture affects people's identities, because there is a case to be made for people whose life choices have been engineered to a T, right. Such that they do not even have any kind of personal ambition or personal goals. And they are only a reflection of the society that they are in, and they are only a reflection of, say, their parents and the schools that they went to, and just everything that people had already engineered and said, you know what? This is what we want you to be. And we're going to do everything in our power to make sure that that's what happens. You know, nurture at an extreme level, I wonder how effective sort of that is.

Yeah.

Yeah. And even, Even taking those snapshots and then doing an overlay analysis and then running all the calculations on all the fields, it's not even, I don't think, an adequate representation to a point, because metrics have a way of being able to be skewed in order to sort of pass a message. And I think that's basically even what's happening on social media and even in society. We live on sort of, how do you say, let's say, identity politics. How people will say one thing and it is true, but they are saying it in a way to pass a particular kind of message, as if to say, well, if feminism is, for instance, if feminism is the. Is the journey to sort of equal rights or equal, you know, whatever, then it means that we should always be on the same level. It should always like, be 50, 50. So if you enter a class of people who are studying to become doctors, it should be like five girls and five boys, you know, otherwise that's not particularly feminist. When in fact, you know, it's more a thing of, like, choice. And it's like, oh, if, if, if in this society there are only five women who choose to want to study medicine and there's like 20 other men who choose to study medicine, that also is fine. Right. As long as it's a choice thing. But, you know, when you are, when you start to, like, make the measurements, they do not specifically account for motivation, which I think is also a very, you know, big factor of it.

Okay, right.

That.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm. I'm teaching in. I'm currently doing NYC in Akwa Bomb States and I've been posted to a secondary school to teach gem geography and technical drawing. And I've always wanted to teach technical drawing that's like, as much as I know about myself, whether or not I wanted to do, teach technical drawing full time, you know, with all the nuances of actually being a teacher, you know, for the rest of my life. I do not know about that, but I've always known that I've wanted the opportunity to be in a school where I am responsible for teaching children technical drawing. And the opportunity has presented itself to me, and now how to go about it is, I think, a problem. And that's also, I think, speaking to the question of what kind of teacher.

In that part of my identity, if I'm ever going to be referred to as a teacher, do I want to be referred to as, you know, the strict teacher, which, you know, not. Not a terrible thing. Don't be referred to as the wicked teacher who gave too many assignments or the teacher who didn't give any assignments, and we're just cruising through his class, you know, what kind of impact do I want to make? And I think that apart from, you know, my own identity, it's also a question of trying to form other people's identity as well, or maybe not form. Both contribute to the different kinds of things that they consider when they are forming their own identities. Because when my own technical drawing teacher, he used this particular technique where it was. We would all come to class and then we would. He would set up a board, a drawing board, and then he would start drawing and like, he would ask all of us to come around and look at what he's doing. And then he would say, if you have any question about how. Why I drew this line, or like, the point of this line, you can ask. But the point of this is to show you exactly how I'm doing it so that you'll be able to follow along with the process. And that's basically what he did. And I found myself, in the entire time that I took his class, probably asking questions once or twice, most of these questions more being like confirmatory questions than actual, oh, I'm clueless and lost, and I don't understand any of this. Is that the same kind of technique that I want to use? Obviously, because I understood it doesn't mean.

Exactly. And because, you know, I think, oh, it worked for me, it should work for you. You know, as a teacher, if I do that, if I use that same method, am I, you know, just prepping for failure where all the students don't even understand what the hell I'm doing. And they're like, oh, like you are doing this, but you're not teaching us anything. Because perhaps they're used to a particular, particular style of teaching and they've not. You know, it's just a lot to think about because identity to a degree, while it is primarily, while it's primarily something of the self, it also affects other people as well.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think, I think that's a very, very important point.

The pressure that comes with, especially in a changing world where, you know, 30 to 50 years ago, you know, there was no such thing as social media influencer and there was no such thing as like, yeah, probably, you know, I don't know. But you know, it was more like, oh, I'm going to grow up and I'm going to work in an office, you know, 9 to 5 and like those were the only really kinds of jobs or if you, if you're not working a white Collar job. You're working in blue or white or brown collar job where it was, you know, label technical assistance or, or, you know, office work. Right. And you would think, and you know, growing up, for me, I thought that the highest level of success was going into the office with, you know, a white shirt and black tie, black pants and a jacket, you know, going into the office with the AC on, in my official car, with my official driver, and then like, you know, because that was what was modeled for me. But in a world that has sort of changed.

Over the past, say even in the last 10 years, what has changed so much that it now looks like if you are doing a 9 to 5 job, you are a loser and you don't know what you want to do with your life. Like, that's how the world has shifted so drastically that if I, if I knew exactly who I was 10 years ago, I don't know who I am anymore. I don't know what I want anymore.

Yeah, I, I was watching this movie. It's called. It's not a movie, it's a series. It's called Criminal United Kingdom. In this particular episode, this junior detective inspector is working a case, right. And she doesn't realize that. So, so the person she's interviewing, she thinks is innocent. And at a point, you know, the, the interviewee. The interviewee starts saying one or two things that somebody flags as. Oh, damn, it looks like you might be the, the criminal here. But the person that's doing the interview doesn't. Okay. She doesn't clock it. And then by the time the whole thing happens, they are able to, you know, discover that, oh, this person was actually the criminal. And then they're like, oh, good work, good work. You were so you, you used your people skills on her and she was able to even confess without knowing that she was confessing. Amazing. We'll work on the technicalities, but, you know, we should give you more of this kinds of work. You know, we should even promote you and all of that. And she says, no, I don't want, I don't want, because if I do more, I'll take it home. And I don't want to take my work home. I want to keep these two things very separate. I am not ambitious. And I know it's not okay to say that I am not ambitious, especially these days, but that's just the truth. And she was able to just. And I think to be able to say that kind of thing, you have to really know exactly who you are. And what you want.

Yes, yes, yes. I. I was responding to an email from a friend today, even today, and she was saying, I don't know what I want to do with my life. I don't know. And I said meself, I don't know. But here's the best advice I've ever gotten. Do it day to day, right? And if you know what you want to do today and you know who you are today, I mean, that's fine. Tomorrow may never come, so, like, why really bother that long term? But there will be some days where you will find clarity. And it's always good to, like, note those moments down and maybe write it down in a piece of paper so that on the other days where things are a little less clear, you can always refer to it and say, okay, who was I at this time? I think this is one of the reasons why I love taking so many pictures. And I did, you know, 2022, everyday journaling and even these podcasts and all, a lot of voice recordings and video recordings that I do of myself is. It will help me to look on today. By tomorrow. I say, dimila, you had these views. Oh, but things are different now. This was the context, and this is the context now. And you can change. Change, such as the world changes, you can change. I think it's also important and people don't really give you a lot of. Of space to do this because, you know, you know, because people will pull up your Tweet from, like, 10 years ago and say, oh, you tweeted this and you are a bad person. You're the worst. Well, that's, you know, taking into consideration that while this person was exactly who they were 10 years ago, they probably changed. You probably changed. And I think that's also very important. Finding yourself in a world where you feel like you are constantly lost is harder to do when you are not allowed to change because you feel like, oh, I must get it perfectly right today. You know, I must overthink every single tweet. I must overthink every single job that I apply for. You know, some people's job, some people's resumes is you specifically just one thing, right? They were always an accountant at every place they work. But there's some people who go from TV presenter to bricklayer to laborer to coder to, you know, writer and, and you.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think, I think, yeah, I think this is exactly correct. But I want to say one more thing. I say correct. Correct is probably not the word to use in this context. Well, yeah, it's true. I want to say in closing as well that I recently came to an acceptance of myself as a copycat. And I know that sounds. But let me try and give a brief explanation. For one thing, language is copied, right? You can improve on it. Yes. But there's a fundamental nature of it that's copied. And there's a quote by somebody and I do remember who is that. There's nothing original in the world, so you might as well just, you know. So I really do think that. And some people, it's now like a time of bullying. We were like, oh, yeah, yeah, copycats. It's like, that's fine too. Right. Obviously there are probably things that are probably not fine for the sake of societal rest, for peace in the society. But I really do think it's important to.

To consider all these things that we've said in this episode and to really. And I think, yeah, just to tie it all back to faith. Faith. Faith in finding. The role of faith in finding oneself is. Is very important because it is everything. It will help you get through each day whatever you believe in, whoever you believe in, however you believe in, what you believe in, it is everything. It really is everything.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's been it, guys. We will see you in the next episode. Until then, peace.