Identity

Recently I published an article defining culture, I want to build on that article as the definition of culture has given me language to discuss identity. I have been drafting an article on identity for as long as this blog has been in existence. All of my life Spock from the “Star Trek” franchise has been and remains my hero, why? Well, the latest “Star Trek” movie named, oddly enough , “Star Trek” is very enlightening in the context of culture and identity. I have to say one of my favourite scenes in the “Star Trek” movie is when a young Spock is in school and his classmates are “trying” to elicit an emotional response from Spock. Finally Spock’s classmates do elicit an emotional response.
The character Spock kept me sane most of my life, like Spock, I am a creature of two worlds, disabled and not disabled. I am unfortunate / fortunate enough to have been able to hide my disability. I like Spock lived in two worlds, I rejected my disabled self and purged it from me as Spock has attempted to purge his human emotions and human self. I like Spock have only found peace at integrating all of my Cultures to form my own identity. Finally there is peace in my world in my soul my heart my mind.
I participate in many cultures but belong exclusively to none. This provides me with competitive advantage in a professional sense; as its easier to trust someone who isn’t in your culture, someone not connected with a culture is generally the best person to change it, and not belonging to any particular culture means I have to work, very hard, on creating and maintaining bridges to others and their cultures. The flip side is that since I can’t belong to any culture because of my disability its very hard to find a sense of me, acceptance of who and what I am. To find myself I had to leave all of my past cultures behind and stop trying to pretend that I fit into them, its been a journey.
To leave my cultures behind I had to create my own culture, a culture of one, I had to define my culture my own identity. When I was born I was born Kyle Bruce Begum I was born into a family that is big on baseball and oil, I was born an Albertan, a Canadian, and I was born disabled. This last bit, the disabled bit, put a wrench into all of these cultures. My family of origin doesn’t talk about the “disability” that is in their gene’s, because I was born disabled I couldn’t work in the oil field on the oil rigs, too dangerous, and although I’ve tried baseball is not my thing. Standing willingly in a path of a projectile, a baseball, you can’t see is well, stupid, so I don’t. When I was born Alberta was still actively sterilizing or euthanizing visibly disabled babies, and Canada to this day, and I’m checking, doesn’t recognize us disabled types as, citizens of this land.
My journey to accept myself began the day I accepted a job in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Ontario in general is much more liberal then Alberta and leaving my family and Alberta behind I started to find myself. Ontario is the first place I felt acceptable and that my disability was tolerable. In fact Ontario is where it was suggested that if I don’t start telling the truth about my disability, stop lying, I might loose my professional integrity. It was also suggested that I wasn’t really fooling anyone anyway, anyone who took even a second to look could determine that I couldn’t see anyway, so who was I really fooling, other than myself? Turns out no one.
Thanks to the success of my professional career and the dysfunction of my first marriage I was recognized by Microsoft as someone who knew their shit. I was recruited by Microsoft and eventually with Microsoft left the culture of my country I left Canada and went to the United Sates of America. The USA is the world leader by far, bar none, the global leader in recognition and accommodation of persons with disabilities, I was in heaven. It was a struggle a rebirth to be sure, I lost a LOT of weight ran a marathon, got divorced, left Microsoft and found myself. A baby goes through a portal from the womb to the world where the baby is subject to forces of 200 lb./sq. inch. Babies get seriously squished on their way into the world. I felt the same way there has been so much change in my world in my journey to find myself that I feel squished, I would venture my head remains cone shaped from the strain.
I do have a legacy a heritage of cultures to pull from. Many people in these cultures have had a very hard time coming to grips with the changes I’ve gone through, an openly blind man is a very threatening thing after all. Don’t we have disabilities after all to embarrass and threaten our cultures of origin? In many of my legacy / heritage cultures now that I am openly disabled openly blind I am persona non grata. There are connections and people I’d love to have in my brave new world mostly my children but after a life time of lying about who I am can they possibility forgive me enough to risk getting to know this mad man, I hope so, but I honestly don’t know and wouldn’t blame them if ultimately their answer remains no.
Not belonging to a culture until I moved to the United States of America was painful. It hurt not belonging, not being, acceptable. With the American’s with Disabilities Act, the USA has openly recognized and guaranteed a level of accommodation and acceptance for disabled persons. I can honestly say that I am an American, disability and all and I am welcomed, I was home. Due to the economic conditions I’m not home and like everything in life there is a purpose. I’ve had to return strangely enough to the land of Canada, Alberta, and my Family. For some strange reason I’m always able to find a job here, my reputation for professional excellence remains, so I can still eat. The downside is now that I’m “out” I’m “openly disabled” they don’t know what to do with me here, my reputation means I still am in demand but the questions of, “OH MY GOD, I could never live disabled, how have you accomplished anything in your career?”, or, “Hmmm how do we accommodate you in the workplace and what does that mean?”. I’m beginning to wonder if my mission from God is to educate and perhaps advocate for disabled recognition and rights in Canada, after all I had to get political at some point in my life didn’t I?
So like the Terminator, I’m back, I’m back but now I’m “outed” as disabled, yes I am an alien and no I can’t find my ship to get the hell out of here so I guess we’ll have to deal with it together, or not. For me a quick and dirty answer is get a job back in the USA and never come back, but is that the right answer, so far no it isn’t. After all life, living, the human condition is about the struggle not the achievement. I’ve achieved I’ve reached those highest of highest mountains a few time professionally, when you get there you go O.K. that was cool, no what. Those times of “achievement” of a completion of the struggle have also been the most devastating to my career, there was nothing left to do I had to reinvent myself.
Since I’ve been back I’ve been blessed to make some new old friends. There is a fellow I met at work before I left for Toronto, I’ve always wanted to work with this fellow and recently had the opportunity, he has my ultimate respect. He has a son with a disability, disorder and he gets bullied from time to time. My friend told his son to let those crazy people giving him a bad time to “fuck off, eat shit and die”. This is an Alberta attitude I have been willing to relearn I am thankful to God for my friend. The problem remains in Canada I can tell them to “F Off” but they can still say I don’t really belong, in the USA they can’t. A small differentiator but at the end of the day there is somewhere I belong. As an aside I believe in America as a country they may not be the top dog in the world and they might loose that spot to Germany, India and or China but in America, “We the People”, have the opportunity to step up and succeed. That is why no matter how bad it gets no matter what America has to go through Americans will pull through and remain and retain their greatness.
After all of that what were we talking about, oh yeah, identity the culture of one. After having the opportunity to participate in so many cultures and belonging to none I have come to the following conclusion, identity is the culture of one that each and every one of us has to come to grips with and has to define. I give you the following model building on the previously published model of “Culture” I give you my definition of “Identity”.
Identity builds on Culture, it’s a chicken and egg philosophical discussion but for me the context the language to talk about identity came from a discussion of culture. I’d have the discussion but it will cost you a cup of coffee.
In addition to the definition of “Culture” I give you the added dimension of:
Morals
Our definition of right and wrong, our personal commandments.
Beliefs
The things we hold dear as true.
Values
The things that are important to us the things that have priority in our world.
Sex
How we transfer our genetic knowledge and participate in procreation
Actions
The things we do. The things that can be measured to define who we are the things that in sum define our, “Character”.
Character
The sum of our “Actions” which ultimately define who we are and what we stand for.
Like Spock from “Star Trek” I’ve struggled to control my emotions and like Spock I’ve ultimately had to choose not to, in not controlling my emotions in not pretending I’m something I’m not I have found myself I have found peace.