dimensions of self

This class is an odd one.  Not so much for it's novel character, but because it's also mandatory.  Someone not only came up with this distinctive mash-up of a course, but it was agreed upon that we should all have to take it.  It even defies being given a straight forward name.  I thought Dimensions of Self and Society had to be some sort pretentious misnomer, that it was more like an Intro to College class, or something.

Now that I'm more than half-way through it, I'm still not entirely sure where it's going.  We've been reading all these little bits and pieces of literature, poetry, and history.  Throughout which, there's been this thread, vague, but it seems to be one of self-determination.  From the struggles of slaves to attain it, to poets writing about the choices they've made.

That being only half of it, as it's also very writing intensive.  Lots of focus on how we personally relate to the material.  Another dimension of self, self-expression.  I guess?  Vermont is an odd state.  Writing about myself though, yeah, I think I can do that.  I'm just not sure what it even means.

I've been wondering if I'm even a night person at all anymore.  That was a huge part of who I was, for so long.  Now, I barely even remember what it was like.  I simultaneously loved being up late at night, and dreaded being awake during the day.  People are so much more tolerable when they're all sleeping.

I don't feel that I've changed all that much.  I still can't stand people, but when I moved to New Jersey, a few things changed.  I had to be awake during the day, I started treatment with an endocrinologist. I started jogging and eating healthier, because the people I lived with eat that way.  I had to get used to dealing with people more, and maybe I do dread it less than I used to.  I don't honestly know what caused the change, but I transitioned gradually but thoroughly into a day person.

Just the other evening, I was thinking about how I used to enjoy going for simple walks at night.  I liked being out at night.  Just for being outs sake.  At night.  The later, the better.  I was thinking about how that doesn't really appeal to me like it used to.  How am I supposed to get anything done, in the middle of the night?  I fear I may have lost something, here.

I certainly don't identify as a day person.  Or a morning person - and yet it's difficult not to get up before 6am sometimes.  Usually because I've been going to bed so early lately.  I don't want to be awake during the day.  I don't particularly want to be awake at all ever, but it's easier to control than it used to be.  Sleeping whenever the hell I felt like it was certainly problematic.

Another thing I did back then, was abandon everything I owned, keepsakes from childhood and the like.  I threw out old paintings I did as a teenager.  I abandoned the notion that I should identify with any of it.  That there was any point in holding onto any of it.  Everything we are, a matter of circumstance.  Circumstances change.  If I premise my life on transient notions of self, my footing will never be stable.

What then does it mean to identify with anyone else, when I no longer identify with myself?  Not that I'm free of it, but I do get tangled up in these contradictions.  I'd like to be a night person again, someday.  Whatever that means.