query to all

[adrienmundi]

What is it you need to survive, to feel like you? I don't mean food/clothing/shelter, but in an identic sense, possibly (but not necessarily) social sense. Is it mapped by positives, things that resonate and reinforce? Can it be mapped by negatives, things that make you feel threatened or contrained? Really, I want to know, as I'm struggling with a ton of this myself.

Comments

[aesthetic.livejournal.com]

Music.

I think about it. Without the rhythms of the world around me - even if it's just the music that nature makes around me outside - I'd have offed myself a long time ago due to lack of ways to cope with my own emotional output...

[grendel317.livejournal.com]

There are things that make me happy, and maybe even things I need in order to be happy (music, useful work, love), but I don't think there's anything I need just to feel like me.

[laughingwoman.livejournal.com]

i definitely need space that is all my own on a somewhat regular basis. it isn't even about distraction or "being in one another's space" as much as it is just feeling myself go quiet, and knowing that all is quiet around me. maybe it's about psychic space. i would have to think that this is necessary for me.

that, and to be somewhere that has--to my subjective and ever evolving definition--inherent beauty in it. this works in the country as well as the city and all points in between, but i need to be able to find that, somewhere, wherever i am.

and perhaps the two are connected: when i feel no psychic space or have not had any for a long while, i fail to be able to perceive simple or profound beauty around me.

[anansi133.livejournal.com]

What is it you need to survive, to feel like you?

Survival to me, means simply staying alive, buying time. I don't have to feel like me in order to survive, I just have to keep from dying, whover I think it is who's still breathing.

To feel like myself, I have to be in a better state than simple survival, I have to have a sense of safety, to be relaxed enough to choose my own schedule, instead of reacting to what's coming at me.

I'm not yet sure I know what that feels like, to be honest. But I fantasize about it a lot.

[fairyhead.livejournal.com]

Well, you probably already know with me, but I'll go ahead and make a list:

Positive things that make me feel more me:

Music (god, why do I forget this so much)
Cooking
Crafts

Negative things that help me erase myself:

Viewing other people as the ultimate arbiters of my value (crap, if I could just figure out how to do that internal, rather than external validation, I'd be freakin' *happy*)
Falling into Janiene's goodness = what she can do for other people
Getting caught up in what might be

[scottopic.livejournal.com]

All of the above, positive, negative, neutral, inverted and so on.
Everything I do, am and experience makes me feel like me.

"Wherever you go, there you are."

[skiadaimonos.livejournal.com]

Come to think of it i never "do" anything to make me feel like me.
To be honest I am not sure I unerstand the question.
Particularly since I dont think I could narrow down a definitive "me."

This, of course, does not work the other way around. There ARE times (maybe even more frequent than I would like or concede to) when I feel off in a particular way that I could conceivably use the terminology of "not feeling like myself." And generally, if such times occur i do try to do something about it. Most of the time "not me" has a biophysical, or at the very least a sensory component. And much of what i do addresses that at least in part: Eat, stretch, go work out (hahhaha), pick up a book I like and read a bit of it, play some music, pet the cat, yell at the cat, chew on the cat, pet the asian, yell at the asian, chew on the asian, that sort of thing.

But beyond that, I think my assumption or pattern is to observe "me" as it emerges at each instance. And I guess the project is to try and accept that "me." Sure tweakings and adaptations of self and environment will frequently arise from these observations. But can't call any of this "more" or "less" me. Dunno if this makes sense

[scottopic.livejournal.com]

You don't yell at the asian :(

[justanotherg33k.livejournal.com]

In an identic sense, my job seems to be the primary determining factor. This is particularly problematic when I am unhappy at work. In fact, the more I contemplate my dependence on vocation as identity, or at least identifier, the more it bothers me.

As far as activities that make me feel like me... music, creative pursuits, cooking, spiritual practice, political stuff (especially environmental stuff and labor stuff). Did I mention music?

[theinnocence.livejournal.com]

freedom
not my own opression

[celticmoni.livejournal.com]

Words.

Spoken...written...sung...in my own voice.

Which, I need to trust more than I have been.

[dustyskinandall.livejournal.com]

Connection, real connection with another/with nature/with Universe.

Creative time.

Laughter.

all the above & ...

[achasonc.livejournal.com]

Purpose. I'm still feeling out this nitch in the guard. Most of all, I want my kids to be proud of me.

[katrionakeg.livejournal.com]

which me...moods define needs...flexibility in the static...consitancy in chaos...i can survive anything...i don't always enjoy it or like the me i have to be to survive but it's a me...

[servingdonuts.livejournal.com]

What is it you need to survive, to feel like you?

Nothing much, near as I can tell. Seems like I'm always around, no matter what I do.