Things Fall Together

So, the last few years I've been thinking a good bit about identity. How do we construct ourselves? Is it all environment and inheritence or do we get to pick and choose what we want to be parts of ourselves. I've come to think its most often the former rather than the later. But, only in as much as we choose to allow ourselves to be thus constructed.
Consider Foucoult's model of power. Societal structures develop a level of power over and above that held by individuals. A case in point is the number and frequency of ads we are bombarded with for new drugs. Ask your doctor if Nexium is right for you! Do you have any of these symptoms...? If so you should talk to your doctor about Zyrtec. You may be suffering from Early Onset Diabetes and not even know it. You should talk to your doctor about ___! Eventually we start asking ourselves these questions and we allow the influence of the media and the doctors and the drug companies to influence our perceptions of ourselves. But Foucoult's model allows for our own agency too. We are free to resist the pressures that impact us.
Exercising that freedom to resist is something that we are very rarely encouraged to do. When we decide to step back and think about it sometimes we find that we really aren't troubled by our Male Performance enough to seek out a years supply of Enzyte. In that case we are free to choose what we take into ourselves, both literally and figuratively. It also seems from my own experience that once you start being selective about these things its much easier to continue being discerning. You learn to look and listen but also to think about what you are seeing and hearing. That makes a huge difference.
With that in mind, I have found, all of a sudden, that I seem to have surrounded myself with opportunities to examine my self image and the things I have chosen to make a part of me. I have picked projects and selected classes on an intuitive level that ended up focusing on the very things I was mulling over. It wasn't a deliberate, conscious choice but there it is, nonetheless. Having positioned myself thus I can only try to make the most of the opportunity. Who am I? Well, I get to pick and if you have something you want me to include I recommeend you polish your sales pitch. Because I'm down right finicky.