Every birthday I do a sort of self-audit and then make my resolutions, a full 23 days after most people (and a good two weeks after most people have given up on their resolutions, ba-zing!). To prepare myself for that process tomorrow, I wanted to reflect a little bit on what I like and dislike about myself.
A student asked me one day not long ago, as I was doing a goofy dance and modifying a Rick and Morty song to apply to a silent classroom, when one hits the age that such things aren’t embarrassing. And I realized… I was embarrassed by everything as a little kid, then I got so used to not being able to blend in, that I just didn’t get embarrassed anymore. I do my thing.
Today in the car, running errands, I was listening to the playlist I made here on the blog, 40 songs to encapsulate a Phill. I noticed that they don’t all go together, except that they do really represent my personality in some way or another. It was more enjoyable to listen to on random play than I thought it would be. I’m still listening now, actually, as I write. The song “Video” by Ben Folds is playing.
Okay, a break for a moment of transparency: I know most of us aren’t honest with ourselves about things. I am going to try being super-transparent here. If it goes horribly wrong, I’ll probably be embarrassed, just after claiming I don’t get embarrassed anymore. I sang the chorus to Go Your Own Way into a can of chicken and rice soup for the benefit of a tiny child in his mother’s cart today. But anyway– here are 5 things I love about myself and 5 things that disappoint me.
Things I love about me:
- I’m a tough son of a bitch. So tough I guess I just called my mother a name, so… sorry Mom! I have a relatively high threshold of pain, and I tend to take emotional punches well. I like that about myself. I like knowing that if things start crashing down I can probably handle it, and I like knowing that I can work hurt or sick.
- I’m usually right. Now I realize that sounds arrogant, and to be honest, it sometimes hurts because I’m right about things I want to be wrong about, but the vast majority of the time if I give myself a second to think and observe a situation, I read it correctly. I am not saying this to brag– I’m wrong sometimes, too, and I try to be really honest about it when I am because I don’t see the point in pretending– but rather I’m pointing out how comforting it is to be able to trust your instincts. I ask for advice often, but I’ve found that almost every time I ask for advice and it conflicts with what I thought was the right path, *I* was right and the advice was bad. Again, not bragging. I’m just saying, I like that I don’t doubt myself as much at 40 as I did at 20. I feel pretty certain. I think that matters in this life.
- Related to the one before, I can usually figure a thing out. As a homeowner now, this is a pretty powerful skill. I am not a plumber. I have zero plumbing training. But I installed a new sink and garbage disposal. I’ve fixed a car. I reconfigured all our cable. I’ve built all sorts of crap. I always stress to students that humans are pattern recognizers, but the fact that I have certain culturally influenced skills that are instinctive now (I don’t get lost, because my mind builds maps when I move around– because I can weave baskets, I can figure out how things fit together, usually). I like not needing to call someone to fix every little thing.
- I’m quick-witted. Really, I know, again, it probably sounds like I’m bragging. But I realized this one cuts both ways the other day. I think I even mentioned it here on the blog. I was listening to Dan Harmon, as I do weekly, and Dan’s friend Jeff Davis pointed out to Dan that people often think Dan is a really major asshole because if someone takes a jab at him, Dan responds so well in the moment that it seems like he must have prepared. I have the same thing. Words just mesh well in my head most of the time. Sometimes I get boned and can’t say anything. But I think freestyle rapping to narrate my life for my own amusement led to me being quick on my feet with responses.
- I’m good at what I do. I think this is important for my own well-being, though I don’t think it’s essential for everyone. I’m different in comparison to almost all the other professors I know. As a result of that, it’s easily to assert that I’m not as good. I know that sometimes even my valued colleagues underestimate me. When it’s time to throw down, I’m an excellent teacher, I’m good with organization, give good student advice, and even though people don’t always “get” my methods, I’m a good researcher. Most importantly, I think I’m good at being an Indian in a space where most people end up being whitewashed out of their identity. That matters to me, because I don’t want to be a sell-out. I want to be a working class, first-generation mixed-blood overweight Cherokee who makes the world understand that being a professor isn’t something that only the elite can do.
And for balance, five things I don’t like about me:
- I’m fat. I don’t know that *I* mind the being fat, other than the aches and pains and the more expensive clothes. But I hate that to a huge number of people, my being overweight defines me. It has such little impact on who I am to other people (it doesn’t limit my ability to do my job, the only person who has to find me physically attractive doesn’t seem to matter, it doesn’t do harm to anyone else). I will never forget that during a Skype interview, one of the members of a hiring committee said “oh, is this the fat guy?” as my camera was loading. I hate that because I can’t somehow be thin things like that happen. It sucks knowing that my life is harder because I carry more weight. It shouldn’t be, which relates to my problem with justice, but… you know what I mean.
- I am extremely emotional. There are situations in which that’s a good thing, but there are situations where it isn’t. If someone hurts my feelings– which ranges from almost impossible to easier than pie depending on the scenario– it’s hard for me to shake it off. In proof: another professor– one who outranks me, from my old program– one day “Shhhed” my students and slammed the door to my lab. It caused one of my students to jump in her chair and scream. It was 4 years ago. I am still actively mad at that guy, and I tell this story every time he leaves the room. If a loved one hurts my feelings, it sits on me for days. There are people I knew a decade ago in graduate school who I’d still cross the street to avoid taking to because they were careless with my feelings in ways that most people shake off in a matter of hours.
- My sense of justice annoys people and makes me enemies when it doesn’t need to. There’s a movie about one of my heroes, Conan O’Brien, called “Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop.” It’s in a different way, but that’s the problem I have here. If I get upset about something political or policy-based, I have a hard time letting it go. And it gets me in trouble. And it makes people mad at me. And I wish I didn’t have to do it. But it’s just who I am. When we made a hire in my old department a few years ago, I noticed all the finalists were white. I asked if that was true in the last hire, and it was. I asked if that was true in the hire before, and no one could recall a person of color. I asked if maybe that was a problem. EVERYONE got very, very stand-offish with me, and a few people asked me if I was going to talk to a lawyer about it. I was trying to illustrate a problem with diversity as someone who cared. I should have just shut up when I saw that it upset people. But Phill Alexander can’t stop. I got into a rather tense exchange with a full professor a year or so ago because that professor was unclear in a message then mistook my effort to offer some suggestions as an attack. By the end of it, I had a mentor telling me that I needed to just let it go, but I was fuming mad that the other person, who made the initial mistake, wouldn’t accept my apology and kept assuming I was trying to be rude. And I ended up being rude about it I guess since I wouldn’t let it go, so that person ended up being right. That situation still gets me a little miffed.
- Sometimes it doesn’t matter if I’m right and I know better, but fuck it. This relates to #3 here but also to #2 above. And to #2 here, I guess. If I am sure I’m right, I have a hard time letting go. A really hard time letting go. Like sometimes it just WON’T go away. And when it turns out I’m wrong, or once I’ve made a volcano out of an ant hill, it seems like I should have been an adult and not been so bulldog about it. I teach people for a living to know rhetorically when to not do this, and yet I do it on the regular. I act like it’s justified because I’m doing it for the right reason, but I think that’s just me trying to be rhetorically savvy about being who I am.
- I take not caring what people think to a dangerous place. I really don’t care what most people think of me. I used to really care, because of being picked on and singled out. I used to just want to be loved and respected and all that. Now… not so much. I’m a nice person (at least I think I am), but if I don’t care about something or don’t want to change something I sometimes make people around me suffer, I think, for my own ends. It’s an awful way to be, but if, for example, it doesn’t make any sense to me to repair the dent in a car that isn’t worth the money the bodywork might cost, everyone has to look at my busted ass car. If I’m hot, I wear shorts. I don’t really care if other people think a professor should be wearing trousers. They aren’t the one who has to sweat all day. It’s my selfishness, I know, and I wish I didn’t feel so insistent on it. But I do.