Tuesday, April 20, 2004

Expired Identity

A few weeks ago I took a big step towards getting rid of an unwanted guest: Tense Daniel.  I try not to have too much to do with him anymore, but it’s been impossible to ignore him, the way he’s hung around on my driver’s license, scowling at me with somewhat more hair than I currently grow, and the sneer of one of those bad guys from the Matrix. From that laminated card, I stared out at myself from 10 years ago, when I was a very different person indeed.

It was 1994, the shank of my career as a hardassed, cynical, take-no-prisoners-and-eat-the-dead litigator.  Or so I fancied myself.  I came home every day with my fists clenched and my jaw clamped tight.  I labored mightily to convince myself I was enjoying what I was doing. 

When it came time, 10 years back, to replace my driver’s license, I was much pleased.  The old one had my lame LA address on it, and a photo of me grinning like a cretin in a plaid - plaid! - flannel shirt.  It was a shameful license, undeserving of obesiance from any authority figure (liquor-store clerk or librarian) who might ask to see it.  I resolved to let my new license depict a more austere, respect-inducing me. 

I therefore went to the DMV in my then-traditional foul mood, wearing a buttoned-up button-down shirt, a symmetrically-dimpled necktie, and a canvas fieldcoat (for that rugged macho style).  I passed my vision exam and stood to be photographed.  They told me to smile.  I did not.  The picture showed me exactly as I imagined myself to be - it projected exactly the image I desired: “Who the hell are you to be asking me for my i.d.?” I didn’t actually look angry - it was more like tension.  It’s the face of a man who could easily strangle you, but not out of rage - only because it made good business sense.  And with that necktie and piercing gaze, I’d be likely to get away with it, too.

As time passed I grew to recognize Tense Daniel as a parasite, a toxic load of soiled baggage and sour fruit.  He was neither who I really was, nor who I wanted to be.  And so when it came time either to adopt those tense traits more fully, committing to them as a diver commits to the depths, or to jettison Tense Daniel and all his attributes and habits in search of some vestige of my original self that might still be hibernating under that bitter surface, I made a break and turned back.  I stopped with the neckties and the litigation and the scowling.  I got a new gig and a new ‘tude.  Over the years I nurtured these changes until I could say, finally, that I liked who I was and where I’d gotten.  Yet that tense scowling face persisted to pull me back out to an older, falser place. 

I was well on my way in this de-evolutionary process in 1999, when I got a notice for an automatic driver’s license renewal in the mail.  At that point the face on the license I carried was starting to mock me, and I wished that I could get a new photo, a new pictorial persona.  Instead, I was saddled with sourpuss for another five years.  But finally, after a full ten years of cohabitating with a self-image that was not myself, I got the letter I’d been waiting for: I was summoned to the DMV to confirm both my visual acuity and the persistence of my vital functions. 

I was able to satisfy the good people of the State of California on both counts and got in a line that led to a blue backdrop, pointed at which was an official DMV camera.  When I reached the head of the line I gave them a thumbprint, a shaky digitized signature, and a nice big smile for the camera.  I wore a jaunty yellow shirt and a humane attitude.  This guy’s gonna stick around for another ten years, now.  I intend to see to it that he’s better company than his predecessor.