A Jester in the King's Court

Principle #2: The Jet Li Principle

Topic: Identity (Part One)

Disclaimer: This post started getting lengthy and I realized that I better make it a multi-post topic. There is no resolution in this first entry…also considerably less laughs than I usually aim for.

Admittedly, I’ve never seen a Jet Li movie. Until I looked up his IMDB listing, I could only name one movie he had ever been in…ironically enough, that movie is named The One. I never saw it, but I heard many good things about it. The premise is roughly that this guy is able to travel through various timelines and find alternate versions of himself. Once he finds them, he kills them in order to absorb their life force. I don’t know if his plan worked at all, Wikipedia didn’t mention it when I cross checked to make sure I had the name right, though it did tell me that the Rock was originally cast for the movie. Huh.

Anyway, the plot roughly indicates that identity can be spread throughout the multiverse, with each person feeding off the same life force. Yes this could open up a platonic discussion, but that’s not where I’m going with it. Instead, I’m going with the idea that a person’s identity can be spread across a litany of places. I read an article a few months ago asking how people define themselves in an era where they can present themselves in various ways immediately thanks to the beauty of social networking. I don’t have the link to the article sadly, but what it said struck a chord with me.

I personally have this blog in which I am sarcastic yet attempt to say something of worth, I have a Facebook on which I post some topics to start debates, yet mostly quote TV and movies. I still have my old Xanga account in which I’m a completely sarcastic and snide college student, and I have a Myspace where 37 bikini clad women a day want to be my friend…and who can blame them.

Beyond that I have my friends from ECCU who know me in a professional sense, my CBU friends who know me as an engaged academician, my GGBTS friends who know me as a disinterested scholar and my church friends who know me as youth pastor and the guy that talks way to fast on stage when the pastor is out. Then there are the purely internet friends who I can believe anything about me that I darn well want them to.

Granted, in my case I’m pretty much always the sarcastic goof off that thinks he knows a lot more than he actually does, yet seems to actually know more than some people give him credit for. But, we live in a society in which it is completely possible to have nine or ten different identities that a single person presents. And, I personally believe that when a person becomes bifurcated to the umpteenth degree, its incredibly unhealthy.

How many times today do we hear about people having to go “find themselves”? That term makes no sense. Because you must be a “you” that is going to find “you” but what “you” are you already?

Next: Media, Hollywood and Identity Disassociation