![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The mythos of Methos..
Apr. 15th, 2006 08:42 pmA concept that has always intrigued me is the one of identity, of how much who you are determines where you are going. As a human, you have a lot of information locked up in your mind, which people can't get out of you without asking you. If you don't tell someone you know something, they won't know you know it. Let's look at a couple of examples.
The obvious one, based on the title of this post, is the character of Methos from Highlander The Series. He's so old, he can't remember his real name, or when or where he was born. He's 5000 years old, I suppose you can't really blame him for forgetting this stuff.
But it doesn't just happen in great and awesome TV shows. Take Saddam Hussein and Yassar Arafat. They arguably were successful in life, but there's information about them missing, that for all their fame, all their know, can't be recovered. No-one knows when they were born. In some societys, this just wasn't important. In the case of Yasser Arafat, no-one is even sure WHERE he was born.
My birthday sneaks up on me sometimes, but it won't be forgotten. There's a sheet of paper with "birth certificate" written up top and signed by a bunch of people that provides a nice primary source of this information. Then, from that, there's things like my passport, drivers licence, livejournal profile, all of which have the information there. It's just a concept that intrigues me.. your date of birth can be forgotten.. and yet in our culture, it's so important - birthday parties, demographics..
Why no, there wasn't a point to this. Sorry :)
The obvious one, based on the title of this post, is the character of Methos from Highlander The Series. He's so old, he can't remember his real name, or when or where he was born. He's 5000 years old, I suppose you can't really blame him for forgetting this stuff.
But it doesn't just happen in great and awesome TV shows. Take Saddam Hussein and Yassar Arafat. They arguably were successful in life, but there's information about them missing, that for all their fame, all their know, can't be recovered. No-one knows when they were born. In some societys, this just wasn't important. In the case of Yasser Arafat, no-one is even sure WHERE he was born.
My birthday sneaks up on me sometimes, but it won't be forgotten. There's a sheet of paper with "birth certificate" written up top and signed by a bunch of people that provides a nice primary source of this information. Then, from that, there's things like my passport, drivers licence, livejournal profile, all of which have the information there. It's just a concept that intrigues me.. your date of birth can be forgotten.. and yet in our culture, it's so important - birthday parties, demographics..
Why no, there wasn't a point to this. Sorry :)
