"I Am . . ."
When we tell a child who they are, they believe us. When we tell them they're brilliant or creative, they tell themselves "I am brilliant and creative," at least until someone else tells them who they are. "You're stupid and lazy." "You are a little squirt." "You are the spitting image of your Aunt Ruth."
"I am stupid and lazy."
"I am a little squirt."
"I am the spitting image of Aunt Ruth."
As we get older, we begin to realize that it's not just the other people who get to tell the story of who we are. We get to tell our own stories. "I am a princess." "I am a fast runner." "I am a hungry beaver." But even as we learn we can tell our own story, the stories that others tell about us never stop also being who we are, although, hopefully, we get better at deciding which of those stores are true and which are illusions. No one ever gets to be entirely, or perhaps even mostly, self-created. Who I am, who you are, is a collaborative project.
This is the theme of Derek DelGaudio's In & Of Itself, a film made from a one man show that was performed over 500 CONTINUE READING: Teacher Tom: "I Am . . ."