{"id":2342,"date":"2004-10-30T04:17:30","date_gmt":"2004-10-30T12:17:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.inmff.net\/peidm2\/2004\/10\/30\/struggling-to-be-myself\/"},"modified":"2004-10-30T04:17:30","modified_gmt":"2004-10-30T12:17:30","slug":"struggling-to-be-myself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.inmff.net\/peidm\/2004\/10\/30\/struggling-to-be-myself\/","title":{"rendered":"Struggling to be myself…"},"content":{"rendered":"

I watched I ♥ Huckabees<\/a> the other day. Its one of the oddest movies I’ve seen in a while. In the vein of Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind<\/a>, Adaptation<\/a>, Being John Malkovich<\/a>, and Gattaca<\/a> to name a few. Essentially its a movie where the filmmakers set out not to tell a story but to explore a philosophical idea. In this case the plot is subservient to the philosophy. (This is a much better alternative than the plot being subservient to special effects, you only get crappy action or sci-fi movies that way.)<\/p>\n

This one asks multiple questions, one of them is: “How am I not myself?”<\/p>\n

If you’re going to be a literalist, you’re always yourself. But being a literalist isn’t very interesting, and well is a bit limiting.<\/p>\n

But its an interesting question. One I realized I’ve been working at for a while, and even attempted to pin down in such ominous and\/or bland sounding documents as Personal Marketing<\/a> and Personal Statements of Purpose<\/a>. I also listened to an interview on NPR with Lily Tomlin and Dustin Hoffman<\/a> . The part that is relevant here occurs about in about six minutes into the interview. Those documents are not me. Many times I wish they were me, but they’re not. I try to get there, and I think many of us try to get to our ideal but we have to compromise with the actual world.<\/p>\n

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I’ve been kicking around going by the name of Cliff for a while. While that is still me (Cliff is derived from my middle name) part of it is a motivation to make a bit of a fresher start. (not a fresh start, I’m not looking to be birthed again) <\/p>\n

Part of this is I look back on all of the records which comprise part of the history of “Nicholas Barnard” and well many of them don’t look so great. <\/p>\n