On Identity and Origins

Has anyone watched the English Patient? Because I recently have, and it got me thinking about identities and the role of nationality. There's this theme when it comes to defining someone's identity in this movie, that is a stark disparity between who someone is according to their name or their papers and the person that stands behind all that. Although there is a lot of international mixing an mingling - or precisely because of that - the primary aspect people in this movie seek when defining any person's identity is apparently their nationality. That is natural in that sort of situation - I suppose - but it forces a role upon the characters, and while some seem to embrace this role others seek to escape it.

Weirdly enough in a western world that seems to have bound together to some extend I can still relate to that. Now, I don't suffer it as much as say Almásy does - thank god - but every now and then when I interact with people from other places, I feel how they are trying to force a role on me based on where I come from. You'd think that nowadays that we westerners eat food and use products from all over the world, watch movies from Hollywood to Bollywood, and converse with people from every which country via the Internet, where you come from wouldn't really make that much of a difference. Now, I'm not saying that my origin didn't leave it's mark on me, but I definitely wouldn't consider it to be among the primary aspects of my identity.

But what then does define my identity? To what extend is identity even definable? Isn't any attempt to "define" someone's identity a fundamental error? Not just because of the multitude of facets, but also because such an attempt usually presupposes the false assumption that identity is a static concept. And am I really gonna relate more to people of my geographic region, religion, gender, age, academic degree or job? Or aren't all of these mere conversation starters? The parts of the Venn diagram that is you and them. But that I think might be the very crux of the matter. Because in the end it seems like who ever attempts the definition is as vital to defining your identity as you yourself are. In a way then how your identity appears to someone is inevitably defined by their own point of view. So once again it all boils down to perspectives, and that means that the role they seek to force on me is probably revealing more about them than about me.