The "Person" Part of "Persona": Ruminations on Narrative Writing
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Simple lineart drawing of a hand writing with a pen
Picture me, a few days before exam week at Brown. I, Rishika Kartik, am rocking glorious 80-s era frizz, a stained sweatshirt, and a U-shaped spinal hunch that my aspiring-orthopedics friends would find mildly concerning. I’m sitting in the VDub eating half a waffle with strawberries and an aesthetically ambiguous conglomeration of moist vegetables. I’m trying to think about physics but am instead preoccupied by two existential thoughts. 1) college will soon be half over. 2) the delineation between donut and bagel is strangely arbitrary.
Enter Keira, with Pinterest worthy eyeliner, cool pants, and an inventive ice cream sandwich fashioned out of soft serve and two cookies. She smiles, I smile back. She waves, I make an awkward “Wait..are you waving to me or the person behind me? Me? Are you waving to me?!” series of hand gestures back and invite her to sit. We chat about classes, the weather, the live action Avatar movie being disappointing, etc, and it’s lovely. That is, until I arrive at a gut-wrenching realization. I don’t remember her name.
I mean. I think? It’s Keira? Or was it Sierra? Maybe it’s Alicia???
A bit of context. Keira is one of those “flash friends,” who you meet in the first few weeks of freshman year. You talk for six hours, swear you’re going to be best friends, and then never see each other again. Except for saying “we should really hang out sometime!” when we occasionally cross paths, we don’t talk much. Not that our lack of interaction makes my lack of attentiveness excusable, but figured I should paint the full picture. Anyway.
At some point I-think-it’s-Keira tells me she writes a lot. When I ask her why, she gives me a simple answer. “I like noticing things. I like remembering other people’s stories and taking more agency over mine.” It occurs to me that I-think-it’s-Keira not only recalls my name, but my home state and major. It also occurs to me that astute observations are what I like most about her. So, I began to write.
I’ve long been familiar with academic writing or rhetorical writing that had a specific thesis or goal in mind. But until recently, I wasn’t used to writing more personally, without a specific audience or purpose. I’ve found narrative writing invaluable for myself, if for nothing else other than to become a more empathetic and insightful person. As they say, to write is to think, and cogito ergo sum. But lately, I’ve wanted to share more personal writing publicly, so as to take more agency over how I perceive and express myself.
Let me expand on this. I had a conversation with a close friend once who said he was initially intimidated to make friends with me because of my “LinkedIn Core vibes”. I found this interesting for three reasons. 1) I have a pretty severe RHF (resting happy face) 2) I’m like 5 foot 3 (5 3 and a half, if we’re being generous). And 3) because scaring people off is the exact opposite of what I wanted to do with my online presence.
The reason I made a website and started speaking more publicly about my thoughts, questions, and experiences was to connect with more people and share the things I cared about with a larger audience. But recently, I’ve realized that limiting what I share to the preprofessional or “polished” is antithetical to this goal, and contributes to the immense pressure students—and people— are facing to turn their personhood into persona.
If you were to ask me about myself right now, unfiltered, I might share something like this, “Hi! I’m Rishika! I’m a college student who grew up in Colorado and now studies in Rhode Island. I like solving puzzles, making things, and learning new information.”
I might confess, “I’m excitable to a fault and indecisive to my detriment. When someone asks me about my future, I feel at once awestruck by possibility and embarrassed to admit how uncertain I feel.”
Or, I’d keep it simple. “I believe that connecting with others, expressing oneself, and exploring what you’re curious about are three fundamental aspects of human life. I believe that because disability is a deeply human experience, understanding disability gives us valuable insights into the human condition. And I believe that access is a right, not a privilege. These three beliefs have guided the causes I advocate for, the subjects I study, and how I spend my time.”
Instead, my public bio reads. “Rishika Kartik. Brown University. Founder: Touch and Create Studios. Founder: Vision of the Artist’s Soul Project. US Presidential Scholar. Coca Cola Scholar. TEDx Speaker.” A true but emotionally stale highlight reel of things I feel I must state to establish my legitimacy so that people will take what I have to say more seriously.
I understand the functional purpose of presenting yourself like this. But feeling pressure to define ourselves only in this way, without room for personal narrative, sterilizes human connection. People who feel they don’t have “prestigious” enough things to show for their work undermine the real value and insights they have to offer. And those lucky enough to receive recognition for the things they put effort towards feel at once deeply grateful and profoundly lonely.
I in no way want to sound entitled or pretentious by stating the above, but I’m new at writing and apologize if that’s how it reads. I also recognize that what I’ve said isn’t particularly novel. I’m not advocating for the restructuring of resumes, LinkedIns, etc, I’m merely advocating for more people to feel comfortable sharing the more ordinary parts of themselves. Nowhere on my bio does it say that I love mangoes and hate pickles. Nowhere on my resume do I get to talk about mundane interactions that have shaped my worldview, movies that’ve made me laugh, or moments that’ve made me cry. I want to make space to talk about times I realized just how little I know and just how much I have to learn in ways that are rambling, unrefined, and might only make sense to me. I like the idea of sharing my thoughts more intimately with someone via words on a page, where I’m not limited by character counts or time constraints, where I can further explain the WHY behind whatever I’m currently thinking/doing. I want to write freely. I want to write nonsensically. I want to write sincerely (or at least, as sincerely as I can). And if re-emphasizing narrative is a change I hope to see in the world, writing more vulnerably on this blog is at least a place to start.
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Notes:
Personal stories on this blog may omit or obscure specific details in order to preserve privacy. Unless I get explicit permission from someone, aliases will be used and characters will be de-identified.
The cover image used is an online image, not personal artwork
