How to Play Identity Ping Pong with Yourself

A personal reminder on our idea of self and existence

Photo by Anna Shvets

I have always thought I was an introvert all my life. I do hang out with friends sometimes, but that would quickly deplete my “social batteries” and I would have to retreat in solitude for a while to recharge. It was easy for me to spend the whole day in my bedroom doing nothing. I got nervous at social events. There were moments when I was so glad that an event got canceled. Put any introvert tropes you can imagine here, I was pretty sure that was me. So when March came along and suddenly we all had to self-quarantine at home, deep down, I thought it was gonna be easy.

But then April 2021 came along. Then following that were May and June, and following those were the days where I would find myself staring in the mirror looking at a face I somehow didn’t recognize. I would work from home right after I woke up until I was ready to go to sleep, leaving little to no space for anything else. Texts and calls and virtual meetings with friends were frequent but the words and the voices and the faces felt so far, so out of reach, so artificial. So were my own words, my own voice, my own face. There was this infinite abyss in which nothing bounced off of anything, and it absorbed everything that fell into it.

The feeling of loneliness that follows those quarantine days was nothing like I’ve ever felt before. While loneliness is nothing new for me, it usually would follow a break up, or a separation, where I would be pulled away from something — or someone — that I hold dearly and as a result of that, I would be left, quite alone. Or it would be something I chose voluntarily because being in my own company felt better than anything else at the moment. But being alone without being pulled away from anything felt strange. Being alone involuntarily, felt strange. I knew my friends were still out there. A couple taps on my phone and I would be able to hear their voice. I knew my then boyfriend was out there. A couple taps on my phone and I would be able to see his face on the screen. But it was not that. If it was any other case of loneliness, having my own company would be enough to satiate the lack of other people’s energy around me. But this time, my own company wasn’t enough because I couldn’t even remember what it felt like.

Being alone during quarantine forced me to reflect on my own idea of self. I came to the conclusion that the moments we spend with other people are like playing Ping Pong in which the ball is our identity. We can only keep the game going when there is someone else bouncing it back to us. The way we hit the ball is how we present ourselves to the world, and the way they hit the ball back to us is a confirmation that our idea of self does exist and is acknowledged by others. With nothing to bounce off of, our ball of identity could do nothing but fall down.

With that being said, I refused to accept that I must rely on other people to be sure of my existence. I have not gone through all these years and gained knowledge about who I am just to be forced to start all over again in a period of time where going out and seeing my friends was not encouraged. So I decided to make a list of things in which I can be sure I exist. Every time I got reminded of something, I would add it to the list, so I would never run out of reasons to believe in my own existence. Here’s a snippet from my ever-growing list:

1. I exist in between the lines in the dog-eared pages of the books I read
2. I exist in texts, in messages, in stupid little notes, in phone calls, in conversations
3. I exist at the sea, on the top of a hill, under the waterfall
4. I exist in handshakes, in hugs, in kisses
5. I exist in poetry, in stories, in scribbles on scrap papers
6. I exist in gifts, in pretty little ribbons, in heartfelt birthday wishes
7. I exist in music, in singing-screaming on the highways with the windows down

In a time where connection is rare and company is lacking, we shouldn’t let our ball of identity gather dust under the table. Even if what we have is only a wall to play against, we must practice so when it’s time to play in the actual competition, we are sure of ourselves and where we are in the world. Once we get into the groove of bouncing off of ourselves, we no longer rely on other people to know for sure that we do, in fact, exist.

Nirinda Niatiansya is a writer from Jakarta, Indonesia. You can find her on Instagram, on Medium, or in her room drinking iced coffee and watching Modern Family for the thousandth time.

More from Nirinda:

An Ode to Voluntary Sadness

The Day the Cat Bit Me

My Island in The Ocean of Uncertainty