Who Am I?

"There is a flip side to that coin. What if you do got me boxed in and I gotta put you down? Cause no matter what, you will not get in my way. We've been face to face, yeah. But I will not hesitate. Not for a second."
Neil McCauley - Heat (1995)


The word perception comes from the Latin perception-, percepio, , meaning "receiving, collecting, action of taking possession, apprehension with the mind or senses.

Judgment is a balanced weighing up of evidence preparatory to making a decision.


I bet you wonder where I am going with all of this. Well check this out. For the first time ever, that I can think of, I sent out an open invitation to the world that is aware of me. This invitation was what movie character would you call me, or describe my personality to me. Now I know there are folks out there who will tell me what I want to hear, but I instead went to folks who barely knew me and folks who are opinionated. And I will be honest, the responses I got rattled me for a bit and threw me into deep thought.

So here is what I'm about to do, I'm going to list all of the responses I got. Then at the same time, look at the source of those responses (what is my dealing with that person). And lastly, give my thoughts on it.

1) Clark Kent
2) Daffy Duck
3) Carlton Banks
4) Cross between Malcolm X and Paul Ruseasabagina (character Don Cheadle played in Hotel Rwanda)
5) Simba
6) Harper Stewart (character Taye Diggs played in The Best Man)
7) Personality Description - Goal oriented, dedicated, shy, humble, and kind.
8) Personality Description - Funny and supportive, but sometimes has alterior motives
9) Personality Description - False confidence in hopes of acceptance from others; use educational success to validate you and you wear it on your sleeve in irrelevant situations; closed minded when views are not similar to yours; unwilling to keep an open mind in discussion.


My dealings with the people who gave these responses...

1) I've known for a short while, but her first perception of me is that of a nice person, soft, lacks presence (some sort of swagger) - Clark Kent like. My response to this lack of knowledge of who I am. Exterior mentality reins supreme here. I never did like Clark Kent. I always thought (and still do think) he is a little punk, lol. Like I told her, arrogantly I will say, from top to bottom, it doesn't get any better than me.

Funny thing about this comment is I told a few of my road dawgs of this Clark Kent perception. One friend laughed for a good 5 minutes and said the commenter has no idea. Another person pointed out some interesting things about Kent....driven at work, humble, man of many talents. I'll take those, lol.

2) Daffy Duck huh...LOL! I'm not sure what to say about this one, but I'll take it. I tend to joke a lot with this friend. Known her for about 2yrs.

3) Carlton Banks....well I found this one amazing. This was received from a good friend that I've know for a few years. But she knows me well enough to give me this comment. She also gave me comment number 9. I need to think on this one more.

4) This friend has known me for about 7yrs now. We've had a lot of crazy discussions (sober and drunk). I consider her to be my bad influence when we use to go out dranking. But she has also seen my other side, the side that talks and cares about life.

5) Now Simba is one I will take with pride from this woman who've I've know for a short while. I asked why Simba and she replied, its because of his courage, free spirit, and confidence. My response to this is she sees something the first commenter does not.

6) The Harper Stewart comment came with a lot of other comments...accomplished, spiritual values, a little decitful, has a wall up due to hurt pride, unconsciously picking at the flaws of others, likes to be in control, means well once he becomes aware of any situation, but all around pretty amicable. This comment actually came from an ex, lol. There are some contradictions in there, but I'll leave it at that.

7) I think this description pretty much sums me up. I've only known her for about 3yrs, but I think she has been around me enough to know those things about me.

8) This description is from someone I always laugh and share life stories with. Known her for about 6yrs.



Now in summary, I spoke with my spiritual mentor about this and she said, "why on earth did you ask people what they preceive of you? You are basically allowing them to cast judgment on you. You know who you are and what characteristics you hold. Look to no man for any perception of you because their perception is flawed by their own 'thorns in their eye'." Good point.

On another note, there is some "swagger" out there that some people look for in a person. Needs and wants. Separate the two. Keep in mind, whenever you find someone who possesses that apparent trait you want, remember how things have worked out in the past when you dealt with that same trait.