Your "Ideal Self"?

[N.Chaos]

(Sorry if this thing's already been posted)


I was wondering if anyone of you had someone you kind of aspired to emulate, whether personality-wise or physically? Kind of like a personal Ubermensch? Mine's actually really embarrassing, but it's a character from an ongoing series I've been writing. When I finally came out as trans, I realized I was basically writing about a more jacked, intelligent (and admittedly more violent) biomale version of myself and that's actually who I aspire to be someday...minus the whole massmurder part. Hopefully.

In a goofy way, I feel like I've been living out the life I was denied through this guy and now, I'm thinking of a future where I could feasibly be him. And it honestly makes me giddy sometimes.

So, anyone else have someone/something like this? Could be a real person, a fictional one, or hell just an archetype/concept you're drawn to.

(Also, sorry if any of that's weirdly worded, I'm incredibly tired right now)

[Padma]

No, I get that. I spent over 10 years writing a novel before I noticed how autobiographical it was that the main character (a young man) falls in love with a young man, and then a young woman, both of whom turn out to be children of Orpheus - and he ends up discovering he is both a man and a woman. No sh¡t, Sherlock, says I to me.

Anyway, I think it's good to have people we look up to, for their different qualities - I think it'd be terrible if I thought there was no-one in the world who was better than me . Nobody's perfect, but there are qualities other people have that I'd like to embody more of, and I'm grateful to them for their example.

PS if you want a really weird example, I've always felt this for the noble Collie dog who helps the family in 101 Dalmations (the original animation). Every time I watch that and he appears, it's like having a proper father. Bwaaahhh. (sorry...)

[Rock_chick]

Well, my internal image of myself was always some crazy haired alt chick (brightly couloured hair, dreads, piercings tattoos etc) and I'm very good friends with someone with someone who is fairly close to this mental image I had of myself, and ocassionally I think that people will think I'm copying her, but in truth I've always been some one like that, I just had problems expressing it properly.

[Padma]

As for my womanly side, in Buddhist story-telling there are these characters called Mahasiddhas (kind of crazy wisdom people), and one of them started turning up in my meditation once I heard about her - she's Called Sahajasundari, which means something like "the beauty of the natural/of being natural", and she's this crazy naked chick who runs around in the mountains with peacock feathers in her hair, and pops up in front of people, teaching and laughing. I'm completely in love with her, and when I'm with her in my meditation, I'm also a woman. The closest I've come to finding an image that reminds me of her is this great knitting pattern snap from the 60's :

[SurlyCat]

I don't really have that. I do have a self image which is quite different from what I see in the mirror, though I'm trying to emulate it as much as possible. It's still of me, so I have the same facial features, the same hair and so on... But much more male. Taller, more muscular, stockier. *shrug* I guess my self image is just a male me.

[N.Chaos]

Ooh, yoxi I actually remember reading about her when I was in Asian History back in college. Hell, I think the Buddhists had some awesome people and ideas on the whole...

Actually, I guess there are people I wish to be like. I'm insanely jealous of any tall, muscular, pierced/tattooed guy and wish I was them.

Ha, me too. That's hilarious because that's a lot like the character I mentioned earlier.

[Olivia-Anne]

For me, as far as physically, I haven't ever really seen anyone that I would want to emulate. Thats not to say I haven't wished I could have someones eyebrows, lips, hips etc... I do however try to emulate traits in from women that I have met or talked to. I would have to say I try to emulate how my BFF speaks. She has the most beautiful speaking voice, as well as singing voice. I also try to emulate my older sisters compassion for the people. Uhmmm ... I'm having trouble coming up with more, Im still in the process of figuring out who I am turning into, so i think that might have something to do with it 

<3 Teagan

[VeryGnawty]

KOS-MOS, the character in my avatar.  She has such an awesome personality.

[Shang]

-whistles innocently- Lestat.  or Miyavi.

I absolutely love Lestat while at the same time strongly indentifying with him...and wanting to be him.

Miyavi just looks almost exactly how I picture myself, which is awesome and depressing at the same time because I have no hope of reaching that level of looks, but I would love to and I sort of do the look (at least conventions).

[Da Monkey]

Hmm, I guess I would like to be more toned and in shape, that is probably my ideal self.

Other than that, (embarrassing story coming up) unrealistically speaking, I often fantasize about being able to sing. I would give up/trade anything in the world to have a good singing voice. I am terrible and tone deaf. I would actually rather have that than a penis, by far. I feel it is a beautiful and powerful way of expressing yourself that I will never be able to do.

[Padma]

Hey, fear not, tone deafness is absolutely something that can be overcome. I have a young friend who decided to learn to play cello when he finished college, and who at the start was completely unable to tell whether he was playing in tune or not. We spent some time working out ways for him to hear pitch better (as it turned out, it was easiest when he tried to sing the same note that I was singing to him), and now, 18 months later, he's just passed his Grade II exams, and winces when he plays a wrong note - which is fantastic, because he can tell the difference! Find yourself a singing teacher or a sympathetic singing friend and go for it, singing is really, really good for you and your heart will thank you .

[rejennyrated]

Other than the fact that I carry a bit too much weight around my middle and I am now 51 years older than I was, I AM my ideal self. 

I would like to be maybe 5 stone lighter and 25 years younger again (25 years ago I was 5 stone lighter too!) oh and it would have been nice to be fertile, but other than that I can't really improve on what I am.

[Imadique]

Oddly enough it's Frank Zappa. I've never had a female idol/role model that I've aspired to be like but he embodied so much of who I want to be and what I want to achieve. It'd be interesting if I was to suddenly become him but also keeping and assimilating my own self whether I'd still have GID, I don't know. I have no doubts about my gender (female) but my role model is quite masculine.

[LifeInNeon]

Guilty.

In fact, I was semi-consciously aware at the time that my RPG alter egos, and my fiction protagonists were really just the distaff me. I was aware enough of the connection that I often referred to them half-jokingly as my anima.

However, that's not to say I let my craft suffered for it. There's no author avatarism or "Mary Sue" quality about the characters that actually ended up on the page once my plot was outlined. However, they often did start out as an idealized female self which I then magnified the faults of.

[Redshirt]

I do remember having a lot of role models and stuff when I was a kid, but I don't really have any now that I'm older. I occasionally see a random guy and want to look like him, but there's no person in particular.
I used to emulate Elliott from E.T., Dennis the Menace, Kevin from Home Alone (funnily enough my name is Kevin now but not because of him lol) etc. Basically any movies featuring a little boy my age as a main character, I wanted to be him and look like him. I remember those feelings being most strong from about age 7 to 10.
Nowadays my "ideal self" is just an improved more-male version of myself. When I watch those movies now I still feel the same way and admire those boys, but now it's translated into mourning-for-lost-childhood because I was never able to be a little boy, only a little girl and then a teenage boy and a grown-up man.

[Ryno]

I've always looked up to my brother's childhood friend Paul. He's a skinny Irish guy with stubble, cropped hair, and a badass yet somehow sweet attitude. He's tattooed, pierced, toned, and swears like a sailor. He's my Guinness buddy (it's hard to find someone as dedicated to a good Irish stout as I am) and ironically, he's a bisexual drag queen as well. A gorgeous one too.

Ever since I hit puberty I wanted to be him. I'll never be scrawny looking and lean since my body type is very short and muscular, but I've already got the personality pretty much down just from studying him for years, and once I'm on T, I'll probably end up taking after him physically as well. Not intentionally but I can't help it. He's more a brother to me than my own brother.


When I was a kid I remember always wanting to be like Simba from the Lion King and when this one female friend and I would get together we'd role play the Lion King, I'd be Simba and she'd be Nala.

[spacial]

I'v been thinking quite a lot about this since you asked.

When I was younger, I did yearn to be like a number of women. Or, more accurately, I could imagine myself as them.

On one extreme, there was that girl, Stacey, who use to dance naked on the stage at Hawkwind concerts. I admired her self confidence with her body. In those days, I could and did dance like that, but clothed, of course. But I would have loved to be able to do what she did.

On the other, I saw myself as rather conservative. I liked long skirts, plain tops. Where I liked, there were quite a lot of girls who were sort of post hippy. They dressed in long flowing print dresses, colourful, but dark. They didn't tend to use makup to any extent, except to make a definate statement. They tended to mix with a bunch of essentially nice guys, kinda rebellious, but never violent. And clean.

Now, I'm quite a bit different. My priority is to get rid of my ugly bit. I don't see myself as trying to be anything particularly. I'm not unhappy with my life at all. I don't want to attract anyone.

That's my take.

[Elijah3291]

I always wanted to look like Lestat from queen of the damned.

[Silver]

Well I'd like to be taller and more shaped like a male.

But personality-wise, I find myself drawn to the characters I write (predictably.) They're like more awesome versions of me. XD

I'm pretty okay with the way I am.

[Padma]

In what experts are calling "weird sh¡t", I've just realised that since I was 16 (when I first read Lord of the Rings), my ideal self has been Galadriel! (and I don't mean Cate Blanchet with her unfortunate pink elf-ears, gorgeous though she be - I mean the "real" one in the book...)