I’m just about to return from a week in Belfast, hanging out with my buddy Pete Rollins at his ‘Wake’ festival. It’s been a week of discussion, drinking and debate, centring around the theme of the absurd. It’s given me a lot to think about, and I’m sure there’ll be plenty of posts on here over the next few months as I try to process everything I’ve learnt and experienced this week. Belfast has become a very special place to me, the city is rich with culture and history, with a vibrant music and comedy scene and an endless supply of pubs and bars to experience them in. The troubles in the late 20th century are still incredibly recent, and even though it’s nineteen years since the ‘Good Friday Agreement’, the city is still very much reeling from the events that took place.
I saw this first hand on Thursday night, returning to my hotel after a bar crawl on the last night of the festival, I bid my friends goodnight and stepped outside for a cigarette before bed. As I stood there, watching the world go by, I noticed a group of young people, clearly on their way home from a night of drinking, much like myself walking along the street causing a ruckus. One of the kids grabbed a traffic cone and put it on his head, showing off to his friends and causing a bit of commotion. I’ve seen this happen before, even been in that situation myself (sorry Mum!) so I chuckled to myself as I watched from across the street. However what happened next was something I had not seen before, and really brought home to me the ways in which Belfast is still very much dealing with the tension caused by the troubles. A police van pulled up, and a few officers came out to move the kids along, while this may not seem that surprising, there was one thing that was different from what I’d expect to see in London or Manchester – the police had guns. While this may not seem particularly shocking, the police officers weren’t threatening towards the kids, they just politely asked them to move along and then got back in the van a minute or so later. But it brought home to me the fact that the unrest in Northern Ireland is far from over, the peace treaty that was signed in 1998 didn’t fix everything, and Belfast is still living with the consequences of what happened all those years ago.
It’s interesting to me that the ripples of something that supposedly ended almost two decades ago can still be felt today. The event I saw is one example, but there are many others which I could talk about. Much of the street art and music coming from Belfast is a product of the events that have defined it’s past, the majority of locals who I spoke to this week still remember the troubles and talk about how they affected their own lives and stories. This got me thinking about my life, the experiences and events that have made me who I am, and what I can learn from them.
We are all a product of our experiences. Our identity is shaped and defined by our past, and the people in our lives that we have known, loved and lost. As my friend, Steve puts it, ‘our identity, the essence of who we are, is a composite of the persons in us known to those people that we interact with.’ Every relationship I have, whether it be with my girlfriend, my parents, my friends or my enemies, has shaped me in some way. It’s made me who I am. Not only that, but the experiences I have had, the wins, the losses, the fun and the pain have all shaped me, changed me and moulded me in some way, however big or small. Who I am is constantly changing and evolving, every person I meet and every experience I have is shaping me into someone new.
What does this mean? Why does this matter? If I’m a product of my experiences and interactions, does that mean that deep down I have no core identity? If I took away everyone in my life and had not been through the experiences that I have then would I still be me? Would I have any identity at all? These are all good questions, and it can be quite disconcerting to realise this. But at the same time, I find it immensely liberating. If who I am is directly linked to who is in my life and the experiences I have, then that means that I do have the power to change who I am if I don’t like it. I have the choice when I interact with events or people to choose how I respond to them. I can make sure that I surround myself with people that bring out the best in me, and limit my contact with individuals who do not. When bad things happen, I can let them turn me into a bitter, horrible person, or I can choose to turn those experiences into something beautiful, in much the same way that Belfast has done with the art and culture that it is producing now. Oscar Wilde said, ‘Where there is sorrow, there is holy ground.’ in other words, our suffering, our pain can either destroy us or be a site for beauty and creativity.
So, who am I? Is that a question I can ever truly answer? I’m constantly changing, constantly evolving, constantly redefining who I am based on the people I meet, the experiences I have and the way I respond to them. I am a work in progress, I am not finished, and I will try my very best to make sure that the person I am tomorrow is a better man than I am today.
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