“Is your identity definable?” Mr. Inquisitive asks.
“Sure,” you say. “I can identify by a number of categories like ‘child-teen-adult-senior,’ ‘couch-potato-jogger-fine-tuned-athlete,’ ‘introvert-extrovert,’ ‘male-female-other,’ ‘black-white-brown-yellow-red-turquoise,’ ‘educated-uneducated,’ ‘elite-ordinary,’ ‘believer-atheist,’ and ‘inquisitive-dull.’ Given a few more minutes, I might be able to list more categories by which one could define an identity. Just thought of another related two: ‘political-apolitical,’ and ‘leftist-rightist.’ Wait! I’m also thinking of economic, behavioral, and vocational…”
“Okay, okay. I get it. You think that there is an interminable list of identifying categories. I assume that some are physical and others not-so-physical. I’ll also assume that all those categories you list overlap, that in ‘identity’ there is no mutual exclusivity. Also, that time can be irrelevant, that no sequential set of identities has to limit your ability to ‘self-identify.’ So, maybe, one of those enduring themes in literature takes us down the wrong path of understanding. I’m just thinking aloud here, but aren’t many literary works—and that includes scripts for films—based on a search for identity. ‘Who am I?’ is a question asked by fictional characters too numerous to mention. To answer requires a search. But in all those stories, the character discovers an identity; there's an end to the search because otherwise, the story would never end.”
“Try me,” you say. “Just name a few search-for-identity characters so I get the idea. But keep it short and simple.”
“Luke Skywalker, for one. Holden Caulfield, for another. Jing-Mei Woo, too. Talk about interminable lists. Georg Ferdinand Ludwig Philipp Cantor would be proud. Seems there are as many stories centered on the search for identity as there are fractions between two whole numbers. Certainly the number seems to be infinite, or, at least, indefinite. Many characters go off in search of who they are; many, like Oedipus, upon finding out, are disappointed by what they find.”
“Why are you stuck on this topic today, Mr. Inquisitive?” you ask.
“Well, it occurs to me that if I adopt a list of inclusive categories—like your list—the search can never end, that each of us spends a lifetime in the search for identity and that no final resolution, no final, definitive identity is assignable to any of us, unless we accept that those who stop searching because it wears them down can say definitively, ‘This is what I am; I’m happy to be this, or, at least, I’m satisfied with the identity I choose to end the search.’ Take Georg Cantor. Violinist, great student, mathematician, founder of a society, professor, husband, father, center of controversy over his set theory, part-time philosopher and Shakespeare/Bacon scholar, and frequently depressed individual, so depressed at times as to be committed to a sanitarium, dying in one after years more filled with searching than with finding. Talk about sets of overlapping identities!”
“Now you have me wondering about my own identity. Or, should I say identities? Thanks. I started the day knowing who I was. Now I have to go off in search of…. Oh! I get it. I'm a character in a never ending story.”
“Sure,” you say. “I can identify by a number of categories like ‘child-teen-adult-senior,’ ‘couch-potato-jogger-fine-tuned-athlete,’ ‘introvert-extrovert,’ ‘male-female-other,’ ‘black-white-brown-yellow-red-turquoise,’ ‘educated-uneducated,’ ‘elite-ordinary,’ ‘believer-atheist,’ and ‘inquisitive-dull.’ Given a few more minutes, I might be able to list more categories by which one could define an identity. Just thought of another related two: ‘political-apolitical,’ and ‘leftist-rightist.’ Wait! I’m also thinking of economic, behavioral, and vocational…”
“Okay, okay. I get it. You think that there is an interminable list of identifying categories. I assume that some are physical and others not-so-physical. I’ll also assume that all those categories you list overlap, that in ‘identity’ there is no mutual exclusivity. Also, that time can be irrelevant, that no sequential set of identities has to limit your ability to ‘self-identify.’ So, maybe, one of those enduring themes in literature takes us down the wrong path of understanding. I’m just thinking aloud here, but aren’t many literary works—and that includes scripts for films—based on a search for identity. ‘Who am I?’ is a question asked by fictional characters too numerous to mention. To answer requires a search. But in all those stories, the character discovers an identity; there's an end to the search because otherwise, the story would never end.”
“Try me,” you say. “Just name a few search-for-identity characters so I get the idea. But keep it short and simple.”
“Luke Skywalker, for one. Holden Caulfield, for another. Jing-Mei Woo, too. Talk about interminable lists. Georg Ferdinand Ludwig Philipp Cantor would be proud. Seems there are as many stories centered on the search for identity as there are fractions between two whole numbers. Certainly the number seems to be infinite, or, at least, indefinite. Many characters go off in search of who they are; many, like Oedipus, upon finding out, are disappointed by what they find.”
“Why are you stuck on this topic today, Mr. Inquisitive?” you ask.
“Well, it occurs to me that if I adopt a list of inclusive categories—like your list—the search can never end, that each of us spends a lifetime in the search for identity and that no final resolution, no final, definitive identity is assignable to any of us, unless we accept that those who stop searching because it wears them down can say definitively, ‘This is what I am; I’m happy to be this, or, at least, I’m satisfied with the identity I choose to end the search.’ Take Georg Cantor. Violinist, great student, mathematician, founder of a society, professor, husband, father, center of controversy over his set theory, part-time philosopher and Shakespeare/Bacon scholar, and frequently depressed individual, so depressed at times as to be committed to a sanitarium, dying in one after years more filled with searching than with finding. Talk about sets of overlapping identities!”
“Now you have me wondering about my own identity. Or, should I say identities? Thanks. I started the day knowing who I was. Now I have to go off in search of…. Oh! I get it. I'm a character in a never ending story.”
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