We just finished watching "Zorba the Greek" as a class, and this movie had me thinking quite a bit about how the people in my life affect my identity. In this movie, Basil, a British character comes to Greece and meets Zorba, who changes his outlook on life. I think I'm looking at this movie in a different way than most, but I've established that I feel like an outsider in this culture, and I'm in the mood to write about something a little lighter than whether there's an afterlife or not. :)
I have been very lucky to have amazing people come in and out of my life who have changed part or the whole of my identity. I am thankful for the family who helped me to form a base identity to be proud of, but even people I knew for a very short time affected me. There have been people here in Greece who have helped me correct the little Greek I know, who have identified me as American and told me they love my country, or who has shown me extraordinary kindness that I wouldn't be shown back home. Each one of these people causes me to think and examine myself.
When you spend copious amounts of time with people, you tend to pick up on their habits and expressions and emanate them in your own life. While this has happened to me, I also feel like my encounters with other form my inner identity and my view of myself. I had a teacher once who helped me to realize that I have quite a loud voice, and when I would talk in class, I talked over everyone. She helped me work on that and now it just so happens that interrupting and talking over people is one of my biggest pet peeves. Every time someone helps me to fix something I don't like about myself, my view of my own identity becomes a little clearer. Every once in a while, someone might really offend me or make me angry when pointing one of these things out, but they help me to become a better person in the long run either by ignoring their advice or taking it to heart.
There are also the people who teach you to really live. I have seen tragedy, I have seen how it changes people for better or worse. But there are the people who helped me through these things to realize that life is special, unique, and fun, and that tragedy cannot dictate how you must live your life. And then there are the people who are inexplicably there, helping you find yourself every step of the way, keeping you in check, reminding you to stay true, and helping you through things that might be kind of hard to deal with.
Basil needed Zorba to show him the way. I am finding my way with the help of the amazing people in my life.
And there you have it: my extremely heartfelt and incredibly cheesy blog for the trip. :)
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