I

I don’t

I don’t know…

Just read the title. 

Basically, here’s my thought tonight: I just started watching this YouTube channel called TheOdd1sOut. Turns out, I’ve been following him on Tumblr for a while. It’s a comic strip. And then his videos, well, they’re just his “marshmallow man” talking about pretty much anything. The videos are kind of random.

Like me.

Except he has millions of subscribers.

Unlike me.

He also has one of those voices. You know, with the inflections and pronunciations, and off the wall comments that are pretty easy to imitate.

And that’s what I’ve been doing on and off for the last couple of hours, albeit, in my head.

I’m doing it right now, actually. 

ACTUALLY

as I think about how I do this all the time, I’m currently bouncing between Hank Green, Link (from GMM), John Green, the guy from that comic YouTube channel…, Mike from the now dead Idea Channel, and a host of others as I try to remember what other YouTube channels I watch.

So, yeah…

(MMC)

I don’t know why I do this. I’m not reciting their videos, or skits, or songs. I’m just “speaking” (which I put in quotes because I’m not audibly speaking, I’m just thinking) in their persona.

I do this a lot with Alistair Begg, a preacher whose podcasts I listen to.

(He’s Scottish, so that’s just fun.)

The things I talk about?

Just stuff. My own thoughts. My own gripes. My own personal vendettas. Just stuff I’d like to talk about, maybe in an online motion picture format of some kind. Sometimes I even make stuff up. (Mostly about science, or fake biographies. The word you’re looking for is “nerd”.)

You could say I’m trying to find my voice. But if you ask some friends of mine, they’d say I have a voice.

And they LOVE it, btw.

I’ve been told more than 2 times that I should have a YouTube channel where I just rant. If we extrapolate how much those people like me, measure that against how much other people I know like me, and assume that they would come to the same conclusion, then we can safely say there are no less than 2 people who think I should have a YouTube channel.

I could do it, I’m just, say it with me class…

“A big ol’ chicken!”

Aww, you do listen. :,,D

But that’s not really the point. The point is that I don’t know who I am. I know what I like. I know what I enjoy. And I know all the words to the song “We know the way” from Moana. ALL the words. Even the islanders language words. I even know what they mean.

[Google! What do words mean!]

But none of that tells me who I am. You know what tells me who I am?

People.

Other people tell me who I am.

I’m not a son without parents. I’m not an uncle without my nieces and nephew. I’m not your old computer teacher who was funny, a little mean sometimes, but mostly boring and way too technical for your developing mind to comprehend without having a student. People tell me who I am to them. And that makes me who I am. To borrow from Moana, I am a son, descendant from Italians and Germans and some people from Whales… But they don’t call me. Presumably because most of them are dead. I delivered myself to where I am now, for better or worse. I’m everything I’ve learned and more…? Maybe? However, I’m not too sure anything is calling me these days; from the inside or the outside.

Who am I?

Can a person just be?

Am I simply a child of God?

Am I my actions?

My thoughts?

My words?

My graphic t-shirts?

Is it a combination of things that I’ll never figure out because one second I’m an uncle, and the next second I’m the poppers guy, and the next second I’m persona on the internet who writes in a blog once every full moon?

(I make these desserts called poppers where I work. They’re like little balls of ice cream covered in chocolate.)

It’s funny, but pertinent that the episode of Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood this morning was about how you can be more than one thing. Of course they meant the doctor can also be a firefighter, so the little girl can grow up to be a astronaut as well as a firefighter if she wants to. Also, Daniel Tiger can be the adventurer at playtime, but can also be a dad… like, for pretend.

So, maybe I’m all that stuff. Maybe I’m what other people need when they need it. And maybe, I’m just soaking in other personas to refine my own. Or maybe I’m collecting personas so I can be more diverse; as more diverse people need me to be something for them.

Does that make any sense?

Ok, I have to go to bed now.

-Diggs out

P.S. – I was babysitting my niece this morning. That’s the only reason I was watching PBS. And if you were sitting there with me, you’d know how unimpressed I am with kids shows. Do kids even really learn things from these shows?

P.P.S. – go check out TheOdd1sOut on YouTube. He is very similar to my own style of telling stories. Especially with the way he jumps around and can go off topic. And his metaphors. Funny guy.