'Identity' is something that has been on my mind for the last few days. What does one mean by this word - a distinct personality? a personality created by the anchoring of ourselves to our land/country, or more specifically to our culture - culture drawn from our linguistic group/religion/ state/place of birth. Erik Erikson has used the term to designate 'a sense of self that develops in the course of a man's life and that both relates him to and sets him apart from his social milieu'. There is an unconscious quest for personal continuity. We want to know where we come from, who our ancestors were, where and how they lived. We draw our sense of identity from this - that we are part of a family and belong to a certain geographical area. Many people who look for their roots go very deep into their geneology in order to reinforce their sense of identity.
There are many who are not really worried about their past - they are the ones who create their own identity and in the doing of it, may take an academic interest in knowing their origins, but not that that would really influence them.
Why do people need to know about their roots? It could be that in this age of globalisation, when there is so much movement to different parts of the world, people sometimes feel the need to have a connection with something fixed - -like a compass...In India, too a lot of people face this problem. Very often, a person cannot stay in the same State that he/she was born in. Could be a job opportunity in some other State, or could be a transferable job that took a family to different parts of the country, and a whole new way of life has to be adjusted to.Admission to local schools for the children, local customs,a working knowledge of the local language. Then, when the kid is grown up, if the topic of identity hasn't been addressed by the by the parent in a rational and logical manner, then this might just cause an 'identity crisis', or an 'identity confusion' (terms developed by Erik Ericson).
What then is this about 'going back to our roots' and our 'identity'? I feel that one cannot and must not limit oneself within the boundaries of where one is born, or where one has lived for many years, or where one wants to spend his/her working life, or even where one wants to retire and spend the evening years. This is very comfortable, but very limiting. Of course, the first question that anyone asks upon introduction is 'Where are you from', or 'Where are you from originally'? or Where are you from really'? This then sets off a whole line of thinking and arguing and rationalising.
We need to create our own identities based on all that we learn and gather as the years pass. One cannot do anything about where one is born or in which family one is born, nor can we dictate what the surroundings should be of the place where we are born and where we spend the first years of our lives. However, as the years roll on, and we go through the different stages of our growth, we mature, and if we allow our minds to mature along with our bodies, we open our minds and brain to various ways of thinking, read and learn from various bodies of thoughts from wise men, learn all the lessons that life teaches us, learn from our experiences both good and bad and thus create our own personality and identity. We can choose our role models and thus incorporate all those qualities which we feel will help us to get the most out of life. We need to understand life and to this end must keep changing and growing. This would make our lives infinitely interesting and make us accept challenges.
We cannot choose where we are born, but we can decide what we become.