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I don't mean your name or what you do. I'm not talking to those of you who have taken off to some exotic land, backpacked through Europe or moved out to BC to breath the air and 'find yourself'.
I'm talking about deep down self perception.
Self Perception is something I believe we are sorely lacking in our lives, dear readers.
Many of you may be saying to yourself: "Self, heck ya I know who I am. My name is enter name here and I'm awesome! How could I not know who I am?!".
Perhaps others (at least I hope there are others out there) know exactly what I'm talking about. You see it everywhere these days. The invention and subsequent proliferation of reality television has thrust it into our consciousness and we – as a society – have eaten it up.

What is it?

We all see it so clearly in others, yet we often fail to recognise it in ourselves.
It is that undefinable quality that allows us to have a true perception – or in the case of what we see on reality TV, the absence of - who we are and how we are perceived by the world in which we live.
If one could even measure it on a sliding scale. The 'average' person with a good grasp on reality would look like:

...a person walking through life in their own little world, thrusting themselves onto national TV in a reality show would perhaps look like:

It may not look like much on paper (or uhhh...your computer screen...) but the discrepancy between the two is vast!
This apparent surge in 'crazy' can be seen not just on TV but everywhere.

In my research I've managed to dig up an ancient poem which is said to posses a clue as to how we might break free from the hold it seems to have over us but I just don't know...I've read the poem several times now and I'm still not seeing it...

I found a sign that leads to our salvation.

American/Canadian Idol, Biggest Loser, So You Think You Can Dance (SYTYCD), Survivor, America's Got Talent, Big Brother, Amazing Race...I don't have enough time to type them all out for you...so here is a list!
Every single one of these programs show a wide variety of people from every conceivable background...why do they all seem so crazy? Why do they all seem to posses a frightening lack of self perception? From the peg-legged, cross-dressing hobo dancing the tango on SYTYCD to the tone-deaf Asian man yelling his way through a Ricky Martin hit with little to no display of ANY MUSICAL TALANT!!! (sorry for yelling. I get carried away but come on people... this guy toured the world and sold millions of CDs based on our support. (I just threw up in my mouth a little!) Watching someone with this disparaging lack of self awareness, they will inevitably embarrass themselves in a seat-writhing display of creativity (for your enjoyment) and in the end you can see in their eyes that the performance/interaction you are still laughing about was, to them, deadly serious. Any challenge to the contrary often ends in yet another embarrassing moment as they try to remove themselves from the situation with all the tack and grace as you would expect from a contestant on Dating in the Dark.
While entertaining, it's hard to imagine going through life having a totally different opinion of yourself than 100% of the people around you.
Fame has a funny way of distorting your self perception.
From reading your own reviews to the parasitical nature of the tabloid press, it's enough to make you crazy. After awhile you begin to question who you are, lose yourself in it all and even start to believe what is printed about you.
Don't misunderstand...there are many out there who dig their own graves with full knowledge of what they hope to get out of it, but do you think Britney (no last name required) saw herself as a raving, bald-headed lunatic when her star was plummeting to the ground? I'm sure in her mind there were moments where she seemed (at least to herself) fully justified with her decisions.
What about Tom Cruise? At what point did he say: "I'm going to go on Oprah (no last name required) and act like a total jerk"?!!! We all know the image of him jumping on a couch, proclaiming to the world that he is, despite what the media has been saying, truly in love. 30 years ago, something like that would have passed with hardly a mention in a local paper. Look at the incident with Michael Richards. If it weren't for someone taping his moment of shame on a cell phone camera, the incident would have been in a local paper the next day and then totally forgotten about. Today, however, we seem to love watching people fall on their faces and the media has answered (or perhaps created!) our thirst for more by repeating the offending moments over and over and over and over.... http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/theampersand/archive/2009/12/30/most-embarrassing-celebrity-moments-of-the-decade.aspx

We all have been there. Something that seemed intelligent and well thought out can often seem obviously silly when looked back upon. After all, you never see yourself the way others do – have you ever heard your voice on a recording or seen yourself on a video or picture? (Is that how I sound? Is that what I looked like that day???)

Perhaps ignorance is bliss. Maybe it's better to go about your life in your own world, oblivious to what others see. It would certainly allow you to strive for things much greater, to become what otherwise you would have not attempted because of self imposed limits. (That's not who I am, so I won't try.)

Thank goodness there is a group out there like The Essentials who have a firm *cough cough* grasp on who there are and where they are headed...