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 As I am not entirely sure I believe in the concept of personal identity (as I have argued in the Why-section), it is quite difficult to give a description of myself beyond "a man who answers to the name of Martin". If the personal identity we choose to give ourselves is qualities we find it very difficult to imagine ourselves without, there really isn’t much left. I can imagine not being Norwegian, not living in London, not being 28, not being any single occupation. And most of my values and beliefs are only valid until something better comes along. I do find it hard to imagine being anything other than a male body (or missing some part of that body… though some women claim that I do!), and I do like my name because of its fairly international nature.
We constantly change, and the past matters not. You couldn’t possibly argue that I am the same as (i.e. identical to) the person I was 20 years ago, even though the word “I” and a bunch of memories link the two. The only tangible reality in my life is what I am doing right now, which could be completely different from what I thought I would be doing when I thought about it yesterday. I am what I do. It is therefore of little importance that I used to be an actor, a voice-over artiste, an announcer on TV, a sound engineer etc., though I may choose to be any of those things in the future. (If you are interested in my past, I won’t prevent you from having a look at www.martinvoll.com.)
So I suppose I am a male body (which includes a brain and a subjective “I”) which answers to the name of Martin and which thinks and writes about projecting itself into an imaginary blissful future state of being a traveller, perhaps at the expense of its quality of life right now.
Nevertheless, let me try to come up with some supposed universal truths about myself, in no particular order:
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I cannot imagine a life without music and I will continue being a composer and musician whilst travelling.
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The first pancake (out of a batch of pancakes) I make will always be messed up.
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I cannot imagine a life in which I would have to clean-shave every day.
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I am utterly dispensable.
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I am doing all this for myself only, but the consequences may have an impact on others.
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I dislike being predictable.
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Though my English isn't perfect, I am big on the genitive “s”. Peoples mi'sunderstanding of this’ elementary grammatical rule get’s on my nerve’s.
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I speak Norwegian (closely related to Swedish and Danish) and English, and I can just about get by in German and French. I hope to learn a bit of Spanish.
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I believe that I don't have too many beliefs, but I do believe in free will and the absolute autonomy of the individual.
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I sometimes wonder if I am the centre of a huge social experiment, that the whole world is a massive scam. It is possible that Africa, South America and Australia don’t actually exist, as I have never been to those parts of the world. So I am giving you plenty of notice to build them – they’d better be as beautiful as the pictures you’ve doctored!
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“I am very nocturnal,” he writes at 4.20am.
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I want to live but I would welcome death.
To contact me write to freewillmartin@gmail.com or better still - use the forum!
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