Betty Friedan (author of “The Feminine Mystique”), Mi’er’s tagboard and Ailin’s blog have started me thinking on the issue of identity. I haven’t been able to write the passages composed in my head (on the bus) into coherence, so here are isolated fragments:
1. Suffice to say, if I were to ask “Who are you?” you would probably identify yourself as a role, a relation, or a function in society (so-and-so’s wife, a career woman, a carer and giver, etc). So what happens when these convenient handles break down, leaving you unlabelled? What happens to the “carer and giver” once she decides she needs, for her own sake, to be selfish? What is she then? For such “identifications” are very different from “identity”, and it is to break away from the former to search for the latter that we talk of “finding ourselves”…
2. In Pinter’s play “The Caretaker” we are never, as the audience, allowed to know the names of two out of the only three characters, effectively obscuring identity. Imagine the audience as they come out of the theatre. When they discuss, how would they discuss it? “Oh I was quite impressed by that guy… you know, the-one-with-the-statue-of-Buddha?” “Oh, you mean the-one-who-never-says-anything?” “Oh no, that was the-one-who-owns-the-Buddha, I’m referring to the-one-who-breaks-the-Buddha, you know, the fierce-one-with-the-electrolux?”
…what a mess (muddle?) life would be, without these identifications. Even if you’re nameless, you’re either labeled through your actions and possessions, or you’re branded by your lack of it. The central character in the movie “Hero” was known as “Nameless”. In this instance, the lack of identification becomes the identification.
3. I have always thought that identity was a lot more internal than external; involving a sense of self. But this sense of self is not a constant feeling; especially not when the self has been cultivated and shaped to exist and get along with society. Every day you redefine yourself when you react to something or someone you thought you would react to in some other way. Every day there are new pressures, new demands. The external becomes the internal, and hence, identity is a nebulous and shifting presence that cannot quite be pinned down.
4. I like myself for the way that I am, insecurities and all; even if I do think too much sometimes, and it depresses me. But: I am well aware that if I wasn’t able to think the way I do, I would no longer be me. It makes me wonder about Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am”. Is my sense of identity the way I can think about, feel about, and hence perceive the rest of life? Perhaps so; but is that everything identity is? Perhaps not. Perhaps identity simply is… and it is not anything we can define or identify. Perhaps identity is simply “I AM THAT I AM” (God), though that would be far too inconvenient as an external label.
1. Suffice to say, if I were to ask “Who are you?” you would probably identify yourself as a role, a relation, or a function in society (so-and-so’s wife, a career woman, a carer and giver, etc). So what happens when these convenient handles break down, leaving you unlabelled? What happens to the “carer and giver” once she decides she needs, for her own sake, to be selfish? What is she then? For such “identifications” are very different from “identity”, and it is to break away from the former to search for the latter that we talk of “finding ourselves”…
2. In Pinter’s play “The Caretaker” we are never, as the audience, allowed to know the names of two out of the only three characters, effectively obscuring identity. Imagine the audience as they come out of the theatre. When they discuss, how would they discuss it? “Oh I was quite impressed by that guy… you know, the-one-with-the-statue-of-Buddha?” “Oh, you mean the-one-who-never-says-anything?” “Oh no, that was the-one-who-owns-the-Buddha, I’m referring to the-one-who-breaks-the-Buddha, you know, the fierce-one-with-the-electrolux?”
…what a mess (muddle?) life would be, without these identifications. Even if you’re nameless, you’re either labeled through your actions and possessions, or you’re branded by your lack of it. The central character in the movie “Hero” was known as “Nameless”. In this instance, the lack of identification becomes the identification.
3. I have always thought that identity was a lot more internal than external; involving a sense of self. But this sense of self is not a constant feeling; especially not when the self has been cultivated and shaped to exist and get along with society. Every day you redefine yourself when you react to something or someone you thought you would react to in some other way. Every day there are new pressures, new demands. The external becomes the internal, and hence, identity is a nebulous and shifting presence that cannot quite be pinned down.
4. I like myself for the way that I am, insecurities and all; even if I do think too much sometimes, and it depresses me. But: I am well aware that if I wasn’t able to think the way I do, I would no longer be me. It makes me wonder about Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am”. Is my sense of identity the way I can think about, feel about, and hence perceive the rest of life? Perhaps so; but is that everything identity is? Perhaps not. Perhaps identity simply is… and it is not anything we can define or identify. Perhaps identity is simply “I AM THAT I AM” (God), though that would be far too inconvenient as an external label.
posted by Ling at
4:04 PM
<< Home