Saturday, October 27, 2007

Saturday, October 20, 2007

I have a 20-25 minute walk to uni everyday at the moment. The beginning bit of my walk is usually pretty peaceful and I've found is a good time to think. On one of these walks I found myself thinking about my identity and how other people perceive me. I think I have a fairly good idea of myself being in my early 20s and all, but I still haven't quite figured out how my perception fits in with everyone else's yet - is it totally different? Similar? Does it even matter?

One aspect of this, which I'm sure I've gone on about a lot on here, is my Indian heritage. I was trying to figure out why it bugs me when complete strangers want to know where I'm from, people who I am never going to be friends with and who I have no social interaction with (except to buy something from them maybe).

Suddenly I realised my problem - I don't like that people feel they can know something about me, based solely on the fact that my family come from a certain country. I agree, your culture is a huge part of who you are, but who are they to assume that I follow everything? That I believe in it, or agree with it. I'm not saying that I don't, but I resent being judged (because that is what they're trying to do) on my background. If someone is determined to judge me, do it on my personality, of which my culture is a part, not my heritage. I don't want myself to be defined by what other people of my culture think - because yes, I may have a similarity to them in some respects, but why is it a given that i will? Well I suppose it's because most people *do* follow the culture they're brought up with...but it still bugs me.

You might then say, why do you care what they think of you? Well I don't especially, which is why I reply with whatever I feel is appropriate and forget about it, but I think it's the principle that I disagree with.