The Bourne Identity has frequently captured my imagination. I love the past paced, seeming-realistic story that connects with my deep desire for adventure in our country where everything seems to be safe, predictable, and boring. The main character, Jason Bourne, has intelligence, strength, and the training to fluidly pass through borders, think himself out of any challenging situation, and win almost any fight when necessary. And unlike most action movies, the writer personalizes Bourne – you see and relate to his struggle to discover his true identity. He has no master plan; rather, he appears to walk through life – reacting to each new circumstance life throws at him with almost a God-like perfection.
Unlike the movie, though, I’m guessing the independent life of Jason Bourne is hardly real. And if it is, it’s never satisfying. In America, I feel like we’re taught that independence is everything. To rely on someone else means that we’re weak. And for me, I’m so deeply programmed in that belief that when I fail to measure up to any standard or challenge thrown at me, I feel like I’m worthless. If I have to rely upon someone else, there’s no use for me to be anymore. And so to see myself make even a single mistake holds an incredible amount of shame. I quickly forget that there might be any good within me; I don’t see any of the glory God has given me, and I’m quickly tempted to hate myself. And the all familiar overwhelming sense of hopelessness and death once again wants to take over me.
It’s that death, that feeling of hopelessness, the feeling that there is little good reason for my existence that is so easy for me to drown in, that I hate admitting my failures and mistakes. So much shame and fear has surrounded those failures in the past, that I wonder if there is any good in sharing the deepest parts of my life with others. Somehow it seems that admitting the whole reality of my life leaves me open to a destructive criticism that finally sentences me to truly being worthless.
Although I started the earliest parts of my “college career” with almost a perfect grade point average, I gradually realized I wasn’t perfect. Others around me could solve problems I couldn’t. I hated asking for help from others because it meant I had already failed. And the more I couldn’t measure up to being the best, I felt I was the worst. The spiral of self-hate caused my grades to drop, causing even more hate. I quickly began drowning, but I could never ask anyone for help. And I continued with an Electrical Engineering degree I hated because I couldn’t get out of the way of my pride and fear of failure as a human.
And yet I remember entering college with a number written on me. Nobody knew it, but I did. Although I’d graduated third in my class of about 150 with little effort in Reed City, Michigan with almost a perfect grade point average, I’d hated that I only had an ACT score of only a 26. That number had become a huge part of my identity. And I think there was a certain sense to which I was determined to prove that identity wrong. It was a scar that I needed to bury.
