on my way back home from work yesterday, I caught a glimpse of a man with a cardboard sign with two sides: one with “war veteran” scratched across it and another “wanderer”.
it then occurred to me how most people occupy different selves in accordance with their place of stay: work, school, club. in one way or another, we mould parts of our identities to fit the rooms we are in.
at work, I am not terribly unlike myself. I chuckle about jokes that aren’t all to funny to anyone else but me, doodle cats in between page margins, and pour myself coffee sweetened with a little too much vanilla. rarely, though, do I muse about my journeys on late nights, surfing cities and conversations, arguably fundamental to who I am.
it strikes me how most people will never know us multidimensionality as well as how few people we will know multidimensionally. I find myself wondering who my coworkers are when they are completely undone from their button up shirts around people who have known them for ages.
just today, my coworker briefly mentioned his participation in open mic nights as a singer for the past year which sent us all down a discussion of our latent selves.
another coworker chimed in, speaking casually about how she had been a classically trained cellist venturing across now closed bars in San Francisco while the visiting plumber spoke briefly on how he actually owned an audio studio, producing music for his youngest daughter.
while we would love to know entirely, I think the nature of multidimensionality makes the brief glimpse people offer us into their lives in all the more special.
