2024 - 007 Musing | Multi-tasking Identities
It seems to me that any self-growth project I will embark on means I’ll be messing with one of philosophy’s most dominant inquiries, and this the question of: Who Am I?
Whether I’m aware of this staring game or not, I’m an instant volunteer even by just thinking of changing something about myself. Whether I fix my hair on different side today or I fancy cutting my credit card in half, it qualifies as a response to the question of identity.
I, as a living, conscious human being could never avoid this question, as long as there is a brain that constantly thinking about itself and always interacting with the world.
For simplification I like to think that the brain creates identity—a shell, a vessel, or an interface it can use to navigate the complexities of the natural and social worlds. Though having an interface doesn’t guarantee an absolute answer to the Big Question because identity is always just an attempt; one of those stories we tell ourselves in order to live.
Another simplification is that I’ll be liberally using the word brain for the rest of this essay even though I can use the Ego, the Mind, or the Self to make my point.
Thinking About It-Self
“I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were.” — Joan Didion
Didion’s passage captivated the idea of having many iterations of self. Although she was only referring to the past versions of us. The brain is a multi-tasking ghost & machine. It's not only good reminiscing about its old skins, but it's also actively maintaining present identities, while busy tinkering with its many future editions.
Any disruption in the harmony of this self-aggrandizing activity causes a lot of challenges. Both good and bad. A mother who lost her only child ten days ago, an athlete who became Olympian yesterday, the star student who was caught cheating and facing expulsion this semester, the shop owner whose hearing was restored today. Most of the disruptions can be handled easily. Most disruption are normal part of life.
Disruptions of identities, whether we are aware of it or not, are venues of growth, creativity, and connection. In this place we seek tools, company, celebration, wisdom, or miracles. In here we go to bookstore, reach out to a friend for advice, attend a class, seek therapy, apologize, wait, or pray. This is Us participating in disposing, recycling, maintaining, editing, or shaping identities. This is Us gazing at the Big Question of Who Am I while it gazes back on us.
On the other hand, disruption is the perfect place for oblivion—the Petri dish to cultivate many drama that are present in this world. It doesn’t matter where the disruption happens: within an identity or between two identities. We feel the anxiety like lead pellet that chipped the bone. This is the brain which notices the incongruencies between the Present Me and the Future Me now that the scholarship was denied. Or the brain who couldn't sleep and just doomscrolls past bedtime, and it keeps thinking about the person it used to be two weeks ago before the break-up of an engagement.
The World For It’s Taking
Even before it pops, the brain is already interacting with the world. During babyhood, it's already capable to make measurement and collect data from its environment. Together with the rest of the equipment it have and the information it gathers from the surrounding, identities are being created and being customized, but they were not deploy yet.
Disruption in the environment naturally means disruption in identity. History is ripe with this. Global conflict happened and borders were adjusted. The ancient river changed course and the whole tribe were now confused. Electricity was discovered. Spain crossed the Pacific for the first time and an archipelago was altered. On smaller scale, the birth of a new baby spells disruption in identity for the five year old sibling.
Identities also influenced environment. The rise and fall of religions, cities, ideologies, or marriage all have something to do with disrupted identities of members of the party. Cooperation it seems, or lack of it, is a function of identity.
Final Words
It’s amazing how the invention of nature shrunk our simple, primal concept of identity. I heard from a Peter Senge lecture, nature is not a thing back in the good old days. (Good old days mean ancient times.) Most societies before us had no word for nature. Our ancestors intuitively knew they were part of nature and not separate from it. Talk about real singularity.
Many things were also invented like humanism, modern medicine, and yes even words like nature, success, insurance...the detachment and separation keeps widening. One of the most recent human inventions called social media is dividing us further. Civilization slowly shrunk our common shell, broke it apart, and now here we are, demoted in our individual fragments smoking the promises of capitalism and consumerism. Again it's a fragment and has rough edges; it’s not even a cozy tiny bubble we like to believe it is.
We will be keep seeking this common identity we’ve lost always: “come hammering on the mind’s door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends.” Sadly, only few among us are making amends and grieving.
Notes & References:
- Book - Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
- Video - Peter Senge: "Systems Thinking for a Better World" - Aalto Systems Forum 2014