15 April 2014

The expression 'amalgamation of identities...'

has gone deep...

What courage Asra Q. Nomani must have to write a book like 'Standing Alone in Mecca'. And it is a courage that we can all borrow from. She says, 'I spent my young adulthood trying to understand the amalgamation of identities within me.'

While some people can synthesize their various identities, some of us struggle with them because, often, we do not know what we are battling. Our various identities keep wrestling with each other, and often we do not know how to manage them, let alone make them cohesive, causing us to live fractured lives.

I found that writing down my various identities - those that describe me at birth, those that define me from the place that I was brought up in, and those that I acquired along the way due to my experiences - helped me a great deal towards sync-ing them. I realize I need to - have to - must - make them harmonize with each other to create the melody that would define me.