Who would I be if I were who they say I am?

Poll: How much of any person is actively constructed in any given situation with a specific fueling intention, and how much just, is? Is 'being' even an option? Who the hell am I?

I fatally brood over other people's motivations, but less often do I wonder about my own intentions. When I wake in the morning, how am I deciding what to wear? I work in an office where my coworkers are my public; people wear pajamas to work. Dressing nicely gets you accused of going on an interview. Why do I ever dress nicely for work? When I respond to an inquiry with sarcasm or sincerity, how much of a choice am I actively making? How constructed am I? And what is my intent? With the right bust-to-waist-to-hips ratio, the right swagger, the right vocabulary and intonation, the right angle with a 35mm and focus of the lens, the right give-me-the-weight-and-do-what-you-will-I-am-not-so-breakable, could someone learn to be Christine?

Of all things I think myself to be, self-aware, I am not. A view of myself out is rather different from how I hear of the view looking in. Who is more accurate? I really don't feel like I am trying to be anything. And yet when something kind is said of me, I generally end up feeling rather awful, like I've lied, like I have been putting up a front, or rather, intentionally constructing a self that is pleasant for other people, even if I'm not sure what I've done.

But how long have artists and authors argued over intention? T.S. Eliot and kids of New Criticism, Barthes' and the deconstructionists (Begam's Critical Theories was one of my favorite classes), wanted the artist to be removed from the work, let it stand on its own - or rather, be subject to the understanding of the reader - and don't take biography, the creator, into account. Can that be done with a person? If we are no less constructed than The Wasteland? If I am what they say I am, am I just 'am', or am I then constructing myself to remain as they want me to be?