Definitions are truth. They are hard, literal fact and nothing more. When I was younger, I read the dictionary for fun. While this did wonders for my vocabulary and tremendously improved my writing, it didn't help much socially. Why? You ask, because surely knowing the meaning of words like juxtaposition, abomination and plethora is a people magnet. Today, definitions are irrelevant. Our generation, as with all before us, has discarded definitions, following an anarchy of rules that are anything but truth. Douche is not a synonym for jerk. Epic does not mean "Slightly Cool". Ghetto is as politically incorrect as it gets, if we trace it back to its WWII roots. I am not saying I do not use slang, as a teenager and human being I am entitled to my share of inaccurate phrases, but I try to avoid any that are so far from the truth they hurt my thirteen year old self, sitting in bed listening to the Beatles and thumbing through waxy pages. Webster's "New" World Dictionary cannot apply to speech, because it is in the constant motion of progress. Even Dictionary.com cannot keep up with the chaos of a word gaining a thousand meanings, not matter how much we like to think the internet is ten steps ahead. The Urban Dictionary and Wikipedia try, but I can't stress enough their lack of reliability
Ask me to define myself? When truth is inapplicable to reality, once parallel concepts, one cannot simply say: I am pretty, ugly, smart, stupid, creative or boring. Because REALITY-I repeat, not the same as truth-is that humans are much more complex than the words printed on a page.
So what can I say about myself, what makes me me? My first instinct is to say my values. Love. Tolerance. Respect. Freedom. But can such abstract ideals really be a person? No. Not even a well written, in depth character built on years of psychology, philosophy and writing class can possibly be DEFINED by such a thing. What defines us is not what we hope for. In ways, it is very much what we believe in, but more so it is how we resemble it. How we think. The things we say. How we act. And, in my case, how we write. When I tell people how many books I've written, the first thing they ask-immediately following "How do you have time?" P.S. I make it, which is harder than it sounds-is "What are they about?"
To summarize a book is to define it, and I have long since lost the value for definitions. Much as when asked to define myself, I am at a loss for words. The question I want to be asked is "Who is it about?" Because it is, essentially, about the characters. Similarly, I would like to answer the question "Who am I?"
I have empathy, more then is healthy, and I feel and show compassion to everyone. I get good grades-although that is sometimes a struggle. I have to stay busy to keep my sanity-and I am my work. I am the costumes I design, I am the drawings I create and I am the characters I write. What defines me is not only what I believe in, but how I treat people. How I treat myself. How I treat my characters. Yes, it is my ambitious, unrealistic dreams, but also the amount of stress and work in attempting to reach them. It is my fears, but also how I struggle to conquer them. It is the conquest and failure that adds up to a life, more than two lines on waxy paper could ever hope to describe. Definitions are fickle, like people.
They change, much as we do. A game of telephone that passes ear to ear, until we are forever morphed and "Chill" is something we do with friends, not what our refrigerator does to our food.
What defines you?
Who are you?