Medicine cabinets, apparently, are the best way to figure out who somebody is. The trick goes something like this: get an invite to a party, drink a little too much, ask to use the loo, lock the door, snoop.
I’m a little sorry to say that the first time I heard about this, I tried it. Sorry because I’m really easy to influence. I probably read about it in a magazine and tried it that night. Doesn’t take much. Unfortunately, I was still in high school (and so was she) so I didn’t discover anything juicy. I found out that she thought she had acne, chewed her vitamins, used men’s razors, a pink deodorant, and obviously had a nervous habit of collecting hair scrunchies. See? Nothing juicy (except for maybe the bit about the men’s razors–that might have something fun to it).
So, I’m not sure it really works, but I love the idea. This idea that you can look at a slice of someone’s life and figure out who they are: the books they read, the music they listen to, the crap they keep in their car.
I’ve been thinking a lot about how I can apply this experiment to my own life. Figure out my personality. Figure out who I am and what I want. It’s a little frustrating. This isn’t the first time I’ve been here. I feel like I’m always trying to figure out who I really am. Can’t I just observe something in my wake and draw some conclusions?
Well, sort of.
Personal cataloging is one of the side effects of the web. I bookmark stuff that’s helpful or interesting to me on delicious.com. I’ve been doing it for a few years now, so I thought maybe this would give me some direction. My theory was simple: if you are a combination of what you want/like and what you actually do from day to day, your bookmarks should reveal something about you. I logged in and pulled up my tag cloud (list of categories) for my bookmarks, and here’s what it looked like:
So, what did I find out from my digital medicine cabinet?
I dig writing, design, running, and photography. Lifehacks? I like learning new things and figuring out unconventional ways to grow, I guess. I like to inspire or be inspired–or at least think I do. Despite my efforts against it sometimes, I apparently think collaboration is important.
Any surprises? Not really. But it did have a calming and focusing effect on me. For every item in this list I have another five that I think about or consider doing. After all of the circling and wandering, I come back to the same things that are most important to me. That’s good to know. It tells me what to write about. It tells me what to talk about.
So, who am I? I guess I’m someone who likes to communicate. Am I any good at it? Doesn’t matter.
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