http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/121/twentieth-century-man
This story was all about a man who became different things throughout his life and the people that he met during those times comparing notes about who in the world he was and what was going on with him. It made it came across as something of a conman and liar, that he couldn't be himself throughout any of his life, but he changed and altered who he was to fit his mood at that point in time. The entire piece was made out to be about how this guy was a villain. He started families, acted differently to everyone around him, left those families, and lied to everyone. He lied and that was a bad thing.
But hold with me here for a minute, don't we all do that?
The person that I am at home, by myself, the person that I like hanging out with for a long period of time because he gets me, is not the same person that I am at work. The person that I deal with and can sit and share thoughts with is not he same person that I am when I'm at church teaching a Sunday school lesson. I am not the same person depending on where I am, who I'm interacting with, and what I'm dealing with for that day, and that's not uncommon.
Everyone puts on a little bit of a face when they go and do certain things. When you go to a sports game you put on a different attitude, a different persona than when you're sitting in church. When you're at school you're a different person than when you're sitting in your PJ's watching Netflix. People act differently depending on when/where they are, this guy just took that a bit further to the point where people could categorize it and see the changes.
Not only do people themselves change when they are being looked at in different circumstances, just look at the people who are looking at them. If you take all of my students and look at their evaluations and reviews of me, it's a scatter shot. There are some concepts and ideas that are consistent throughout the entire group, and those things start to show how I am and what I can become better at while at work, but the rest of the spread is beyond insane. It covers everything from saying that I'm the worst teacher in the history of the world, to a great teacher hat helped them prepare for anything that they might be having to deal with up to this point. I was the same teacher, I was teaching the same students the same information over he same amount of time. I was the one who was static in that section, but my students, depending on how they chose to see me, either vilified me or praised me.
It really makes me wonder what some of the impressions are that I've left on people in my past. It's easy to tell what my students think about me because they write student evaluations. They flat out tell me exactly what is going on in their minds and I get to know what that is. But what about all of those other people? What about the people that I worked with at ROI? Even my family members would be interesting to know what they think about me and my personality. What in the world does my mom actually think about me? How does she see the kid that she's been working on all of these years? How does my dad figure me out? My sisters? My wife? It'd be oh so very interesting to get people on their own that have known me from different times in my life and really ask them about me. To do this piece about me wouldn't be as crazy as having multiple families and lives that I have lived, but there's definitely a spread of hobbies and personalities that I've thrown around, and it'd be interesting to see just what would come out of it all.
I want to try to agree with the people who made this show tat their dad was a scum bag, that he was a liar and a con man that was lying his way around the world to make it the way that he wanted. That he was nothing but a self centered jerk, but really, I can't. I can't because deep down I see a bit of me in this guy. I see that he was just trying on things that fit him for the time. Given, he didn't have the dedication to a family and anything like that that would stop me from flat out uprooting my life and starting all over again, but I get it. I get the pull and how amazing that would be to just stop everything because life sort of sucks and starting all over again with a different city, a different family, and a different outlook on life. This guy was able to remake himself. When he wasn't happy when he tried on new things, he went all out and started over again. He was a total jerk and an idiot for doing that, but part of him I sort of admire.
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