Self introduction can be a difficult task to some people, no joke, it can be even more challenging than delivering a prepared speech in public to some. Recalling your last self introduction experience, how did you present yourself to the fresh faces? Name, occupation and hobby? Were you feeling embarrassed about speaking any of these? Could it be any possibility you were revealing something you’re intrinsically committed but appeared to be not well-laccepted among the audience in that occasion? Does it matter if people view and value you by your occupation?
Interesting yet bothering is the social identity. Although we are not yet immersed in the real adult world, our limited past experiences tell us people often value one, in terms of personality and ability, simply by one’s occupation and educational background. Whenever I am asked to briefly introduce myself, I do feel anxious about (maybe I am just overreacting) which of my social characters I should acquaint the audience with, ranging from pharmacy student to brunches of amateur. With no special hierarchy, three identities indispensably complete my soul. It may be confusing if unveiling all. It is, however, conflicting with my conscience if only register one, which is clearly not enough to represent my whole.
I once had an unpleasant experience of self-introduction. Instead of boringly presenting what I am in simple defined terms, I told them what exactly I am with many descriptive words along with usual leisure activities as examples. I thought I made myself fairly clear enough to fulfill such task, strangely most of them appeared to be unsatisfied with my round-round introduction. One just could not resist asking about, or interrogating, my major. Surprising enough, the word ‘pharmacy‘ amazingly eased the tension on their faces right away. That stroke my head up thinking why that matter so much? Could it be said that ‘pharmacy’ is way superior in explaining my personality than whole brunch of concrete daily examples? This drew me to reconsider the social substantiality of work, which seems to be the golden gateway to one’s profile.
As a matter of fact, this embarrassing experience indeed brought my puzzle of social identity to light. Strange but true, so-called concrete examples can somehow be more abstract than the defined terms. Stereotype offers a ladder to understanding and bricks as social symbols of certain activities. Regardless the accuracy of the customs or stereotype, they are the fundamentals for further access. As in the reading materials we have in our course, we learned to appreciate their social significance by equipping us with basic foundation for more in-depth sophisticated discussion among individuals. Stereotype, derived from well-known features, forms a base that allows social interactions in the context of collective culture established.
Pharmacists versus contemporary artists, I believe the majority are much more familiar with the former professional than with the latter. Although people are not educated in any sort of pharmaceutical sciences, they do have some idea about what it is. With no conscious awareness, in Hong Kong at least, we are constantly exposed to the information about pharmacists through various ways, mainly from mass media and commercials, or even personal experiences. Most Hong Kong people are accustomed to the nature of pharmacist, instinctively, intellectually or emotionally.
On the other hand, no surprise, very little ever had previous exposure to contemporary art thorough their lifetime. The size of the circle is almost neglectable. For those who are interested in contemporary performing art (excluding the deeply engaged ones), you may have some rough ideas about it. But did you know this:
“Most Butoh exercises use image work to varying degrees: from the razorblades and insects of Ankoku Butoh, to Dairakudakan’s threads and water jets, to Seiryukai’s rod in the body....Looked at from completely scientific standpoint, this is rarely possible unless under great duress or pain but, as Kurihara points out, pain, starvation, sleep deprivation were all part of life under Hijikata’s method, which may have helped the dancers access a movement space where the movement cues had terrific power.”
This short paragraph briefly highlighted the substantial nature of the Butoh. Happening to know such ugly, awkward and inhuman moves as one of the top three major dance genres can be shocking to most people. Yet, it is merely a common sense among performing art lovers.
Nothing is inborn, though your innate talents may nourish you a faster, deeper and wider development in certain tracks. We must appreciate everything can indeed be acquired, to various degree. In other words, social value is quantified by how much and deeply one field is rooted in one society.
Having known social value grows in the context of shared experiences, it may answer why concerns or worries appear upon revealing your identities. Confession to identity is just a minor thing. More importantly, the implication is, in extreme case, one can share joys and sorrows with no one if such context is only adopted by little or none. Similarly, the mad ones are feeling helpless is because their thoughts can no way be accessed by anyone. Now the question is: is there any sign showing our collective culture is shrinking?
Communication gap seems to be an inevitable growing trend along human revolution. By the time passes, differentiation and diversity exponentially increase as the result of natural development. Take job as an example. Rewinding the development of the job over past few decades, we must admit that there have been so many new job positions being generated since then. No matter those new born positions are supernovas or simply sub-tracks broken from one old bulk, surely the gaps get more widely stretched as the further they go. In such case, differentiations arisen between jobs make occupation no longer a concrete platform for communication in a conventional way. It is sensible to say that collective context is sacrificed at the expense of differentiation. However, does that really mean work is losing its social meaning?
Social meaning does not undyingly stick to the same parameter. My observation is, we conventionally interacted with peers by exchanging opinions on the same object, in which collective context played a pivotal role. However, people nowadays tend to communicate by exchanging experiences/adventures or emotional responses. This transformation in social pattern could be attributed to the influence of technology, or Third Wave in Toffler’s words
. People seems to be fairly used to handling fresh new information without context as a base. Having been bombarded by multifarious information every second, the new age counterparts seem to have come up with a new solution in dealing with their unexplored areas. Background information is now substantiated by the third party - Google, which just answers almost everything. ‘Googling’ is now a common practice among most gadget users. Worth noting is that, such practice may slowly internalizes and transforms one’s social habit, presuming people may be more willing to ‘google’ each other when unfamiliar terms come to sight. Google, undeniably, has fostered a new social attitude of ‘I will know it somehow’ towards unfamiliar things. This even further encouraged the ‘presenting type’ of social mode.
My theory is that, social meaning is evaluated by how people socialize. If the ‘presenting style’ ever becomes the new form of human communication, the social meaning of work will be, in contrast, more favorable to those are more deviated from collective context.
To a considerable extent, social identity is shaped by the importance of collective context, just a matter of time and space.
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Flare
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