The Market For Having An Identity.

It is strange how easily old Hollywood,
for being aberrant and ahistorical in itself,
could push images and perpetuate myths
that were nonsense multiplied for viewers
to take as gospel long after the film first had currency.

In 'It's A Wonderful Life' there is a scene
where the towns people lay siege to their local bank
'to ask for their money back' as if the money
they once put in the bank long ago was still there,
their names were on the notes, or at least on the boxes
that their money was stored in, in the safe, as if  the bank
was a safer version of putting the money under their mattress.

To state the obvious, money does not work like that.
Nor does identity and every identity based on money
and property is only as stable as the market for exchange
that it is part of. The process of exchange, new money for old, 
identity updates and advances with age, are what supports
the renewal of every given community and society. 

You will still exist, whatever the bureaucracy.
Whether it is a bank holding your details,
and money that was only ever notionally yours
at the moment you handed it over. Or when the gov't
holds details that facilitate what seems to be the life
style of your choice, when it was chosen for you.

If you want an identity outside of all that,
then first you have to realise the size
of what you are asking for-it is a lot.

As for me, the bank no longer ask for my i/d
as they asked before, the tellers recognise me.
I could not ask for more than that.