What Am I? Who Am I?

Facing A Minor Identity Crisis Head-On

Jan 20, 2026

Everything You Need To Know About Rodin's "The Thinker" — *THE THINKER* BY AUGUSTE RODIN

When I started COLLIDE PRESS, I was sinking in emotional quicksand composed of agoraphobia, anxiety, depression, and grief.

Every thought echoed back louder than the last. The idea I might free myself from the circle jerk of sadness felt like a fantasy and fever dream. I wasn’t trying to start a new brand or business venture. I was just trying to give my noisy brain something to do.

A friend, seeing something in me I couldn’t yet see myself, dared me to share some of my graphic design and video work. I resisted right away. It felt too close, too revealing. I didn’t want anyone to know who I was. Not yet. So he suggested a workaround: what if I used a pseudonym?

His suggestion cracked the door ajar if not wide open.

Soon after, Clint Collide was born. Still me, but with a small safety net. A layer of insulation between my inner life and the outside world. COLLIDE PRESS could exist without forcing me to step fully into the light. The new name let me make and say things without feeling watched, judged, or obligated to explain myself to the people who knew me in real life. Clint could take risks I wasn’t strong enough to take yet.

For a while, working under the pseudonym made it possible for me to work again.

But here’s the thing about masks and pseudonyms that no one ever warns you about: over time, they can blur. For you. And for everyone else. For instance, newer friends know me by two names and are never quite sure which one to use, or when. I remind them I don’t care anymore….because somewhere along the way, Clint stopped being just a shield and became an integral part of who I am.

Many dears, nears, and queers have known about my alter ego for almost a year now. Clint is no longer a secret identity, whispered about or carefully hidden. He’s a part of me, overlapping me but not replacing me.

Aside from AI voices I have used in some videos, everything I make and write comes from my heart. My work reflects what I believe, see, and am still trying to understand. But it is not all of me. And that distinction matters more than I expected.

Yesterday, I read a thoughtful post by Cody Daigle-Orians on Ace Dad Advice about using authenticity as a weapon against queerphobia. His findings hit close to home, not because our lives are especially alike, but because the tensions he describes feel all too familiar:

The pressure to be visible.
The fear that visibility means sharing too much.
The quiet math of deciding how much truth is “safe” to share.

Authenticity, for me, isn’t about total exposure. It’s about alignment. About refusing to contort myself into something smaller just to make other people comfortable. I show as much as I’m comfortable showing and keep the rest for and to myself.

Lately, I’ve been noodling on a couple of questions: What am I? Who am I?

Over the years, I’ve been a projectionist, a computer tech, a costumer, a production assistant, an assistant director, a web designer, a webmaster, a graphic designer, an art director, and now a full-time content creator who produces montages, slideshows, and videos—and writes.

My resume probably sounds unfocused if you squint at it wrong. Like I never picked a lane or a specialty. Oh. Well. I like doing different things. And I’m pretty good at a lot of different things.

But lived from the inside, my resume doesn’t feel scattered. It feels cumulative.

Every job taught me something about people and problem-solving. Every role has sharpened a different edge. My through-line isn’t in my job titles. It’s in my impulse to make things work and help people communicate better. To take chaos, raw material, or half-formed ideas and turn them into something coherent, usable, and sometimes beautiful.

Still, when someone asks, “So what do you do now?” I pause.

Because “content creator” feels both accurate and insufficient. Because “artist” feels true but pretentious. Because “consultant” feels a little audacious, even though I’m seriously considering taking on some part-time freelance consulting work that would put my motley mix of skills to good use.

Part of my minor identity crisis is realizing that what I am and who I am cannot be neatly summed up by a single label.

What I know is that I’m not a single clean definition or an easy headline.

I’m a diverse collection of habits and hobbies, identities and interests, talents and temperaments. Together, they shape not just what and who I am, but how I move through the world, how I connect, and how I do my work and leave my mark.

Clint Collide gave me permission to exist in the margins, to experiment, to fail in public without feeling personally annihilated. The “real” me has spent years collecting skills, surviving industries, and adapting to circumstances that didn’t always make room for creativity or versatility. Neither identity is fake. But neither is complete on its own.

Maybe that’s the point.

We’re taught to think of identity as a fixed answer instead of an evolving reality. But what if the more honest response to “Who are you?” is a paragraph instead of a word? What if our response is allowed to change depending on context, season, or need?

For me, I don’t think authenticity means merging every version of myself into a single, perfectly branded identity. I think it asks something quieter and harder: that I stop pretending the parts of me are separate, or that one of them is somehow more or less legitimate.

Clint isn’t a mask anymore. He’s a facet of me. I’m learning how to do the work both as “him” and as the “real” me, because now more than ever, I believe authenticity and visibility truly matter.

I may still be figuring out what and who I am. But for the first time in a long while, I’m less concerned about answering correctly. I’m more interested in answering honestly.

Keep calm and noodle on!
Clint 🌈✌️