Personal Identity Construction

Given what Cheung argues in the early part of his article is the emancipatory potential for identity construction and identity articulation on the web, and given his notion of the web as a “stage for strategic and elaborate self-presentation” (55-62), imagine that you are planning on constructing a personal website. Describe the elements of your identity you would want to include? How will you construct yourself? What kinds of complexities or contradictions, if any, would you like to include?

I spent many years creating and destroying personal homepages before anything I made was actually uploaded to the web. I loved the idea of having a web presence, but was uncomfortable with so publicly presenting an identity. In creating a personal homepage now, I would have the same problem.

What are the things that make up who I really am? I don't really believe that the music I listen to, the clothes I wear, or even the books I read make me who I am, but certainly they are the easiest things to talk about. I'm not even sure that the philosophers I like or things I think about have all that much to do with my identity. Ultimately, this is a question about the nature of identity.

I could identify myself in very concrete terms: I am a 24 year old woman. I am a student at McDaniel College.

I could go more abstract: In the language of Ken Wilber, I consider myself to be in the green/yellow meme. I believe that postmodernism is passe. I like poetry that serves to distill truth. I like honesty and integrity in human beings and in buildings.

Or somewhere in between: I like Louise Gluck and Tony Hoagland. I like Simon & Garfunkel and Counting Crows. I like Jane Austen and Isabel Allende.

I believe that there is a core "me" under all these things, but I believe that's what important is that it is. The rest isn't who I am. They're things I do, think about, or enjoy. They aren't my identity.

But because you asked, the five images I would include to represent myself are:
The Circle School logo, a pen and paper, a spiral representing the evolution of consciousness, an open road, and a tree.