Innocence

People say innocence is a splendid thing, and isn't it awful when you finally lose it and become a wised-up adult? Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could somehow return to that blissful childhood state?

Well, no, I don't agree. Innocence puts you at a huge disadvantage and opens you to all sorts of trickery and exploitation. The sooner you lose it the better, in my opinion. The sooner you get to know the wicked and devious realities of adulthood, the better equipped you'll be to get what you want out of life.

Personally, I lost my innocence very late in the day. I was absurdly naive and blinkered for far too long. Not only did I believe in Father Christmas until I was ten, and probably the tooth fairy as well, it was only in my late teens, after I left school and started work, that I abruptly realised how dumb I was and how much of the world's horrors and injustices - and simple facts of life - had been kept from me by my over-protective parents.

I remember emerging from my totally single-sex schooling into a female-packed workplace and realising I knew virtually nothing about women except that they were shaped differently. It took me a while to stop being intimidated by them and start feeling comfortable in their company.

As a local newspaper reporter, I was rapidly confronted with the more unsavoury aspects of life that were hidden from me for so long. Homelessness, squalid housing, poverty, political corruption, alcoholism, violent crime, suicide - the list was endless. I was shocked at so many ugly truths. But my eyes were opened, I was learning fast, and the bubble of innocence had popped.

For the first time I started thinking seriously about my personal identity and realising it wasn't what I had assumed. I had taken for granted that I was much the same as the other young boys I knew - heterosexual, traditional, obedient, well-behaved. I discovered I wasn't necessarily any of those things but was rebellious, deviant, politically left-wing, eccentric. I had to totally reconstruct my idea of myself and kill off the innocent little boy.

So, no, innocence isn't a splendid thing. It's a liability to be shaken off at the earliest opportunity.

Broken heart

Parents who refuse to accept their children for what they are, who want their children to have certain beliefs or interests, or worse still want them to be a carbon copy of themselves, are a menace. It's a shame they can't be prevented from having children in the first place, such is the distress and misery they cause.

Seventeen year old Leelah Alcorn of Kings Mill, Ohio, was a tragic victim of such parental dogmatism. Born a boy but having told her devoutly Christian parents she wanted to be a girl, they forced her to undergo conversion therapy to cure her transgender feelings.

Last Sunday she walked in front of a truck on Highway I-71 and was crushed to death. She left a suicide note saying her parents had broken her heart and made her hate herself.

This is hardly a unique case. So many parents won't accept their children's personal identity and try to push them in some direction they're not comfortable with, which simply screws them up. They find their children's independence deeply alarming and hard to adapt to.

Fathers want their sons to join the family business. They want them to be tough, unemotional high-fliers. Or they want them to be sporty outdoor types. Mothers want their daughters to go into traditional female jobs, or to be pretty and submissive, or to have lots of children. Religious parents want their children to share their beliefs. Socialist parents are terrified their children will become gung-ho capitalists.

There are children who are pushed to become champion swimmers or concert pianists or mathematical geniuses, but who eventually crack up under the strain and give it all up to become civil servants or baristas.

My own parents sent me to a school completely unsuited to my personality - emphasising sport and religion and regarding anything artistic or cultural as unimportant. Clearly I was unhappy but I wasn't allowed to switch to a more suitable school. The emotional fall-out still lingers.

Children need to be nurtured, not moulded.

Pic: Leelah Alcorn

Shrinking violet

Carla Bruni may have a compulsive need to exhibit herself and be in the public eye, but I'm the exact opposite. I crave anonymity and invisibility and avoid public scrutiny wherever possible.

I know that if I come to other people's attention, sooner or later they'll be judging me and maybe finding me wanting. Simply by noticing me, they make me self-conscious, self-doubting and abruptly shy. Even being publicly thanked for something is mildly embarrassing.

I'd hate to have a job where I'm regularly exposed to large numbers of people, or even worse to have to make speeches or presentations to them. I'd hate to be a celebrity or someone suddenly thrust into the limelight by some newsworthy event.

But it's not fashionable, not "normal" to be so reticent. It's supposed to be natural to want attention, to want an audience, to want others to recognise you and appreciate you. We all love someone who's the "life and soul of the party". Or do we?

Some people (like Carla Bruni) don't feel they really exist unless others are acknowledging them and referring to them. Without that constant attention, they feel incomplete, insubstantial, vestigial.

I have no doubt at all that I exist. To me, my identity is as solid as a rock. I don't need others to convince me of the fact, or to turn me into flesh and blood. I see no need to display myself to the rest of the world. What I see in the mirror is good enough for me.

Gasbags and lurkers

I don't think extroverts and introverts will ever understand each other. They have such different outlooks and such different temperaments. The confident, sociable gasbags are baffled by the reticent, thoughtful lurkers and vice versa.

Personally I'm a confirmed introvert. I enjoy a modest amount of socialising and chattering, but too much of it and I start to panic, feeling my identity is being lost in a thickening fog of compulsive blather that's draining me rather than nourishing me.

To an extrovert, that inner panic is bewildering. They love talking to others and they would go on all day and all night if they could. The idea that you've had enough, that you might be hankering desperately for some peace and quiet, is incomprehensible.

Unfortunately, instead of trying to understand each other, extroverts and introverts tend to be mutually suspicious, always accusing the other lot of being the oddities and weirdos who make daily life more difficult.

If only those boring silent types would contribute a bit more, say the exasperated extroverts. If only those narcissistic windbags would shut up for a second, say the irritated introverts.

As an introvert, I believe an hour or two of private thought about something is probably more productive than an hour or two of gabbling away to someone else about it. An extrovert would believe exactly the opposite.

As an introvert, I like to contemplate beautiful sights in silence, gradually absorbing the full grandeur and impact. This isn't enough for the extrovert, who needs to share the excitement with as many people as possible, take 23 photos and post half a dozen Facebook updates. To them, staying silent can only mean chronic emotional constipation.

I guess this mutual perplexity will run and run. But one thing's for sure. Extroverts and introverts need each other's opposing qualities to get the maximum out of life. A bit like chocolate chips and cookies.

Unshared memories

One reason I can't fully explain myself to other people is that so much of my identity is made up of memories - lush, detailed, intense memories that others can never have access to. I can only summarise those memories in a few brief sentences that fail to pass on their complexity.

It's a whole inner landscape or inner country that I'm familiar with, that I've wandered through hundreds of times, that's as vivid to me as the outside reality I'm seeing right now. Yet nobody else has set foot in it.

If I think of my boarding school, for example, a whole swathe of memories spreads across my mind, a whole panorama of teenage bullies, uninspired teachers, muddy sports fields and loud rock music. There's no way I can convey the full flavour of those memories to anyone else. However well chosen the words, they can only suggest a tiny fragment of what my inner eye is seeing.

It's like trying to conjure up Venice to someone who's never been there. I can describe it, I can show you a few pictures, but I can't give you the full three-dimensional reality of being there and discovering it for yourself.

It doesn't matter if the memories are true or false, accurate or distorted. The point is that they inhabit my mind but they don't inhabit yours. They fill out and embellish my past to give it a completeness that nobody else can know.

I can remember a particular girlfriend, say, and exactly how she spoke and moved and ate and laughed and undressed. However detailed my account of her, you will never see her as clearly as I can see her in my memories. You will never be able to imagine the living, breathing, animated person that I can instantly visualise.

If only I could transfer those memories, how much more you would know about me and my inner experience. If only you could download them from my brain and play them back through your own senses, in all their astonishing intricacy.

But no, they're mine and mine alone, circulating my mind like guests at a party, furnishing me with endless private scenarios I can't communicate. A whole chunk of my identity as inaccessible as the Milky Way.

Two of me

It's fascinating (and amusing) how differently my blogmates see me. Sometimes in quite contra-dictory ways.

I'm too pro-women.
I'm not pro-women enough.
I'm too masculine.
I'm too feminine.
I'm over-emotional.
I'm under-emotional.
I'm too judgmental.
I'm too objective and tolerant.
I'm too personal.
I'm too impersonal.
I worry too much about other people's opinions.
I'm insensitive to other people's opinions.
I'm cautious and timid.
I'm reckless and tactless.
I make sweeping generalisations.
I refer to one-off individuals.
I'm too conventional.
I'm too unconventional.
I'm self-righteous.
I back down too easily.

Just saying.
Will the real me please stand up?

Pigeon holed

Someone suggested the other day that the label "eccentric" was out of date, that the people we used to call eccentric would nowadays be diagnosed with a range of mental health problems.

A recluse would be identified as agoraphobic, a hoarder as having OCD, a social clod as having a personality disorder, and so on. They'd all be neatly pigeon-holed by therapists and given a suitable course of treatment.

Well, I think that's absurd. Of course there are people who're eccentric, meaning strange or unusual or wacky, and to reduce them all to mental health categories would be dehumanising nonsense.

It denies the full richness and uniqueness of their identity, as well as implying they aren't just strange but psychologically damaged.

I'm sure we all know a few individuals we would call eccentric - because of their odd clothes, or opinions, or way of talking, or domestic habits. But we wouldn't dismiss them as mentally ill, we'd just see them as a bit dysfunctional, not quite all there.

Attitudes to eccentrics have changed though. A few decades ago people would have enjoyed being seen as eccentric. They would have revelled in it, and tried to be even more outlandish. People like Screaming Lord Sutch, Kenneth Williams and Su Pollard.

But nowadays most people find the label embarrassing, almost a liability. Even if they're privately as eccentric as a pink banana, they take care not to show it but to pass as a normal, unobtrusive citizen. Only if you know them well do you realise they're nutty as fruitcake.

Which means it's hard to think of any contemporary eccentrics. Grayson Perry is about the only one who comes to mind.

But there are plenty out there, lurking behind the grey suits and the sensible dresses. Just doing their thing and trying not to be diagnosed.

Pic: Emilie Autumn, the American singer-songwriter

Something missing

Whatever I say, whatever I do, I never feel people are seeing the real me. I feel the image they have of me is always distorted, inaccurate, simplistic.

I do my best to explain myself, to express the reality of how I see the world, how I live my life, how I relate to others, how I react to tragedy or blessings. But I feel something is always missing, something that conveys the uniqueness of who I am. Something always gets left on the cutting room floor.

People know for example that I'm a vegetarian. But do they understand why I'm a vegetarian, why I'm so horrified by abattoirs, why I hate the mass slaughter of animals, why I loathe the sight of a butcher chopping a carcass? No, they don't, because I have no way of conveying the depth of emotion and antipathy and incomprehension that's involved. I can't express more than a tiny sliver of what's actually going through my mind.

And so it is for everything else that makes up my particular identity. It's like the layers of an onion. People see the top layer and they think that's what I am, but they don't see all the layers underneath, going right down to the core of my being. How on earth do I explain all those other layers, the bits that can't be seen but are all parts of me? It's frustrating and perplexing.

So most of the time I just give up. I decide there's no point in trying to explain the complexities of the real me. It would take too long, I don't have the words, and everyone would lose interest long before I'm anywhere near finished.

So I just reconcile myself to the fact that people don't understand me properly, they never will, and there are always going to be a thousand false images of me in circulation, bearing as much relation to the true me as a plot summary to a 600-page novel.

A novel that may not be worth reading anyway....

An awful likeness

One of the worst things you can say to most people is either "You're turning into your mother" or "You're turning into your father." Given that we're all acutely aware of our parents' failings, the idea that we might be reproducing them sends a shiver down our spine.

Even if we're thinking more of our parents' virtues, we still don't want to be told that we're merely a carbon copy of a parent, we want to have our own identity and take our own route through life.

I certainly don't like to be told that I take after my father, who in my opinion had a stack of unpleasant traits I spent most of my time trying consciously to avoid. Self-righteous bullying, among other things.

It helps that he hasn't been around for 24 years. Once a parent is gone, you're no longer exposed to the character flaws you disliked, and you're less likely to copy them. And when nobody can see the two of you together any more, they're less prone to see resemblances. I'm especially fortunate since Jenny never actually met my father and knows nothing about him except what I choose to reveal. So it's extremely rare for her to utter that dread phrase "You're turning into your father."

But it says something about our underlying view of our parents that if we're told we're morphing into one of them, our reaction is invariably one of shock and horror. My God, you can't be serious? You think I'm like my mother? This is terrible! Even if we're aware of all their good points, we never say "I'm like my mother? That's fantastic. How lovely of you to say so!" No, we always assume the worst, that the other person can see some vile, hideous trait that makes us thoroughly unattractive.

But as far as I'm concerned, I'm not like my father in any way at all. Absolutely, positively not. And you can't say any different as you've never met him. So there.

Pretend boys

In Afghanistan, I learn, it's common practice for girls to be disguised as boys - because boys are more prestigious.

Some girls spend their entire childhood pretending to be boys. Families without sons are often taunted and looked down on, regarded as failures. So desperate parents resort to trickery rather than admitting they only have daughters.

They justify their decision by saying they're just following the centuries-old tradition of Bacha Posh - disguising girls as boys - and avoiding being treated as social pariahs.

They also say that as "boys", their daughters will get experiences and opportunities that girls wouldn't get, thus giving them a better start in life.

But the fact is that they're colluding in a deeply sexist culture that sees boys as superior and girls as second-class citizens denied the same privileges. The collusion stifles any debate on increased freedom for girls and the ending of gender roles.

Criticis of Bacha Posh also point to the damaging effect on girls who feel they've missed essential childhood memories as well as losing their identity. After years denying who they really are, reverting to their true self can seem odd and unnatural.

Social traditions like these can be very powerful forces, maintained so insistently by so many people that they're almost impossible to resist. But someone has to be courageous enough to stand up and say that the deliberate repression of female identity is inhuman and barbaric.

Girls are not merely non-boys. Nor are they pretend-boys. They're fine just as they are - girls.

Pic: Mehrnoush the girl has become Mehran the boy

Stroke surprise

I know very strange things can happen to people who've had strokes. But this really is extra-ordinary - a 19 stone rugby-playing bank clerk who turned into a slimline gay hairdresser passionate about his appearance*.

After an unlucky training accident that broke his neck and caused a stroke, Chris Birch of South Wales gave up his weekend drinking sessions with his hetero mates, gave up his girlfriend and started to date men. Now he lives with his partner Jack.

He also lost interest in his banking job and retrained to be a hairdresser.

"Suddenly I hated everything about my old life. I didn't get on with my friends, I hated sport and I found my job boring. I'm nothing like the old Chris now but I wouldn't change a thing. I think I'm happier than ever."

What this confirms to me is that being gay is definitely not, as some would say, the result of brainwashing, a temporary phase, being too close to your mum, or any of those other idiotic ideas. It's all down to something in your brain that makes you the way you are.

But it must be quite weird when your old personality, that you assumed was fixed and permanent, suddenly mutates into something quite different. A bit like acting someone in a play and then finding you ARE that person, for good. I'm surprised he's so matter-of-fact about it, as if it's all completely natural.

Other equally astonishing things have happened to stroke victims. Alan Brown from Worcestershire found he was able to paint and draw with great skill, despite no previous training. Others have developed regional accents or started speaking in another language.

It makes you wonder what unsuspected talents are lurking in our brains, ready to be triggered by a drastic medical trauma. Are we all secret Einsteins?

* Some sceptics have suggested Chris simply discovered his true sexuality and the stroke had little to do with it other than causing him to rethink his life.

Pic: Chris Birch

Not running amok

Jenny being away in England for a couple of days, you might think I'm seizing the chance to do all those wild masculine things that men normally keep in check for the sake of domestic harmony.

You might imagine, for instance, that I'm:

(1) Going down the pub with me mates
(2) Getting drunk as a skunk
(3) Watching crap TV
(4) Downloading porn
(5) Lying in bed till lunchtime
(6) Living on baked beans
(7) Checking out all the yummy mummies as they bring little Jemima and little Jamie to the school round the corner
(8) Spending an hour or two with that very attractive widow next door
(9) Snorting cocaine
(10) Trying on my Speedos

But you'd be wrong. All those classic male syndromes hold absolutely no appeal for me. I'm very happy just as I am and have no desire to adopt such asinine behaviour. I prefer a good book to a bottle of beer (I detest the stuff) and a good CD to Match of the Day (as I also detest football). I'm incapable of lying in bed after 8 am and I can cook a few tasty meals, thank you very much.

I have no sense whatever of my natural identity being horribly repressed by the chafing restrictions of monogamy. On the contrary, I would say my identity is positively enhanced by it.

I must shamefully admit however that there's an element of truth in number 7. I mean, good grief, have you seen the young mums who live round here? There's some serious primping and preening going on, not to mention gym workouts and strict dieting. Dawn French they are not.

But number 7 aside, I have to disappoint all those who think I'm letting my suppressed masculinity run amok. I don't actually have a masculine bone in my body. All I really need is a cup of tea and a choccy biscuit.

Belonging

I feel precious little sense of belonging. To people, things, places, religions, commun-ities, countries, or anything else. I've always been the bemused outsider, half-attached and half-separate, looking on from a distance rather than wholeheartedly absorbed.

I lived in England for 53 years, but I don't feel very English (even if others see me as just that). I've lived in Belfast for 11 years but I don't feel very Northern Irish either. European possibly, incorporating a little something from every country.

I don't feel I belong to my family in the way most people do. I'm very different from my mother and sister (and my late father), and apart from our shared histories there's not a lot to bind us together.

I find Buddhism inspiring, but in no way do I belong to it in the sense that I'm beholden to it or engrossed in it. I merely refer to it for its insights, like dipping into a recipe book.

I like the neighbourhood I live in, but like the dozens of other neighbourhoods I've plonked myself down in, I don't feel any sharp tug of belonging, only a warm sense of "okayness".

I don't gravitate towards people with shared interests. I don't identify with other hill-walkers or Annie Lennox fans or chess-players. I can enjoy these things without the need for like-minded devotees.

There are one or two people I feel very close to, who I feel I belong to in the sense that there's some strong and compelling connection between us. My partner of 30 years for one. But not many people have that effect. Most people I meet are ships that pass in the night, similar on the outside but utterly different on the inside.

The only thing I belong to in any obvious way is the intelligentsia, that community of curious minds that analyse and dissect the world around them, that are never content with cosy platitudes but always want to go deeper, to find what's hidden.

The bemused outsiders.

PS: I forgot the two things I really connect with instantly - music and art.

Name dropping

A Japanese law says newly married couples must adopt a single surname - which in practice is usually the man's. Now five people in Japan are going to court to challenge the law.

One of the five, Kyoko Tsukamoto, says the loss of her maiden name has caused psychological damage and loss of self. She has never got used to having a different name and wants her old one back.

The five say the surname law violates their right under the constitution to individual liberty and equal rights as husband and wife.

There have been several previous attempts to change the law, always blocked by those who claim the change would undermine family life and children's identities. Surprisingly, almost half the population share these curious fears.

Although newly-weds in Britain are free to choose whatever surname they like, in practice they tend to follow the Japanese and take the man's name.

I wonder how many women are happy with the change of name and how many would secretly like to reclaim the old one? Do some of them feel they've lost a little bit of themselves and their family history? Or do they welcome the new name and all that goes with it?

Jenny has always kept her original name and shudders at the thought of changing it to mine. She doesn't want to be subsumed into my identity, thanks very much, quite apart from all the complications of changing every official record of her name in existence.

How very telling it is that practically every new husband expects his wife to adopt his own name. For him to adopt her name would be embarrassing, belittling, a loss of manhood. And a chap's manhood, as we all know, is alarmingly fragile.

Pic: Marriage Japanese style. Don't you just love that wedding dress?

Distorted self

Our self-image is alarmingly unreliable. The way we see ourselves can be very different from how we actually are, and very different from how others see us.

What do you mean I'm beautiful? I'm just a dumpy housewife who's let herself go. A good organiser, me? I leave everything to the last minute and then trust to luck.

How illuminating it would be if we could step outside our own skins for a day and see ourselves as others see us. We might be in for a surprise or two. A lot of self-delusion and a lot of false modesty might be stripped away.

I think most of us tend either to over-estimate or under-estimate ourselves. We all know the two types - the vain, pompous individuals who're convinced they know it all and the shy, apologetic ones who imagine all they ever do is make mistakes.

I'd say I'm one of the under-estimators. I constantly play down my intelligence, my practical skills, my likeability, my financial resources, my emotional resilience and my enjoyment of life.

People are always contradicting my unassuming descriptions of myself, telling me I'm more capable than I make out. But whenever I compare myself with others, I invariably conclude that they tick all the boxes while I'm obviously lacking.

It doesn't seem possible to have a completely accurate picture of one's identity, everything gets slightly distorted by some preconceived notion of what we'd like to be, or what we feel comfortable with, or what excites us.

The most bizarre example must be the woman who's adamant she's revoltingly fat when in reality her size is completely normal. Or on the other hand, the man who thinks he's Adonis despite his beer belly, hairy nostrils and combover.

In fact our capacity for self-delusion is virtually infinite. You only have to look at some of those strutting politicians and talentless celebs. How our minds do merrily mislead us.