We humans go to great lengths to discover what lies in plain sight. I’m talking specifically about human identity, our own identities.
“Who are you?” I might ask.
Please don’t respond, “I’m a chef,” I’m a cop,” I’m a Congressman,” “I’m the king,” or “I’m the G.O.A.T.” Those are responses to questions of doing, but not necessarily of being.
Doing vs. Being
That, however, begs a question. Aren’t our identities defined by what we do? How else can we define ourselves? It’s a problem, it seems at first glance, to be analogous to my saying I cannot think of time without thinking of place. I cannot think of So-n-So without thinking of Such—Such. She’s “Mother.” He’s “teacher.” They are “gang members.”
Because many of us believe identity is not bounded solely by doing, we slip into our Merriam-Webster or Cambridge Dictionary character to proclaim identity “as the state or fact of remaining the same one or ones, as under varying aspects or conditions. That makes some sense in the context of the word’s etymology, which derives from the Latin, idem, “the same.”
“I’m not defined by what I do,” you say.
Yes and no. Maybe you don’t define yourself by “doing,” but others define you thus, and you, in turn, define them thus. It’s not a fault; the penchant to do so derives habit and that relationship we have with the physical world and with culture. Plus, we let our five senses affinities guide us. “Gladys? Oh! You should hear her sing.” “Phil? That guy’s a comedian if there ever was one. Funny, really funny.” “Have you seen the antique cars Bob restored? He’s worth a fortune because of them.” Are there Gladyses, Phils, and Bobs outside of doing? If so, how so?
Take Jennifer Garner, for Instance
I think of a Capital One Venture credit card commercial in which actress Jennifer Garner says that we might know her from “her other job,” but then mentions her personal business of running Once upon a Farm as she walks through an orchard and greenhouse. Wow! Jennifer has not one, but TWO identities. Both, it seems, defined for others by WHAT she does.
Who is the “real Jennifer Garner”? I have no doubt she is more than either actress or Garner the Gardener, more than a Mrs. through two marriages and is more than partner with another guy, more than mother of three. But do I know her identity in the sense of her “being the same under “varying circumstances”? Do I know whether or not Jennifer thinks she has an identity peculiar (distinctive) to her and to no other? Even if I knew her personally, would I be able to define that identity?
Everything in my limited glossary of personality plays out in my assessment of another’s identity. Pretend I know Jennifer. Do I assess her identity thus? She’s optimistic. She’s hard working. She’s caring. She’s hypothetically or otherwise difficult to get along with—no wonder she’s been divorced. She’s been the victim of cheating husbands. She’s a Simon Legree boss on her farm. Look at the limitations of my identity glossary. None of the foregoing might apply. Maybe Jennifer is Mother Theresa incarnate. But even if she were, that identity would still be one based, for me at least, on “doing.”
The Quest
Going off to find oneself through adventures, going off to find oneself in a cabin in the woods, going off to a wellness center, to a psychotherapist, to a cult leader, to a guru, to a tattoo parlor, yeah all those can be versions of a search for identity. Joining a cult, joining a mob wearing keffiyehs and protesting in favor of a terrorist group, singing with a group some civil rights song in support of government waste…gosh, the possibilities are endless in the search for identity, for self, for self-meaning.
Defining oneself is hard because we are all multiple identities: child, teen, young adult, middle aged adult, dependent, independent thinker, political animal, philosopher, and pseudo versions of ideal identities…driven, indifferent…commanding, subservient…foolish, wise…
Faulty parallelism of mixing adjectives and nouns aside and a faulty modifier thrown in this sentence just to keep the grammatically and syntactically astute among you awake, the search for identity is, I believe, as complex and as frustrating as any human endeavor for good reason: Before aligning all the wavelengths of our lives in a laser like identity, we bounce between what we are and what we expect to be, the mirrors of identity we use for syncing the light that exits a pinhole.
And there’s a further complication: We wear masks we believe appropriate to each social setting, so staying “the same” in “varying circumstances” is difficult at best. Do we wear those masks as we search for identity beyond the confines of society? Do we wear them on a visit to the Guru in the Temple in the Himalayas? As we scale a cliff? As we sit in a cabin in the woods?
Whoa! Now I’m wondering if there really is such a thing as identity sans doing. Yet, all around me I see people in search of their identities. Young people in Goth; young people as “influencers,” merely by fashion or daily doings. Reality show stars as identities to be emulated. Eight billion of us, but usually only those in the saddle of ease and affluence riding off into the sunset of self-discovery. By the way, how far off is that horizon?
In Fiction
Characters in search of identity abound in literature from ancient to modern times: Gilgamesh, Odysseus, Aeneas, Beowulf, Dante, Ralph Ellison’s narrator in Invisible Man,* J. D. Salinger’s Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye. ** The theme is dominant in coming of age stories and tales of both rugged self-sustaining individuals and victims of diseases, cruelty, and doubts. It’s common because it’s common in real life. Maybe you have said or thought “I’m in search of who I am.”
A Sometime Thing or Full Time Job?
The thrill of an amusement park ride can provide a momentary feeling of self. Dangerous voluntary risk-taking, such as swimming with sharks, climbing ice or rocks, or parachuting can focus our attention on “true identity” though the focus might be little more than a rush of neurotransmitters. “When I’m parachuting, I’m my real self.” “Climbing Half Dome in Yosemite and Skiing down Canon Mountain in New Hampshire give me that ‘I’m alive!’ sensation. Nothing beats it.” Others can say with regard to risks not foolishly taken on a whim, “Battling that disease taught me who I am.” “Meditation is the path some choose to seek their identities, their “true” selves. For others, a simpler path lies in a digital capture. “Look, here I am on top of Mt. Lookatme.” For still others, it’s a TikTok or YouTube short. “Look how many views I got.”
Parmenides saw the world as rather static; Heraclitus, as dynamic. Being frames our lives for the former; becoming frames our lives for the latter. I tend to view the world as Heraclitean flow (You can’t put your foot in the same river twice), but I temper that view with Zeno’s paradox that argues Achilles could never overtake a tortoise with as head start in a race or that one never reaches the end of a race because one has to overcome being halfway, then halfway of that, then halfway of that ad infinitum. If there is such a “thing” as a “true self,” then it’s that distant finish line we don’t get to because of our fractional approach.
On your way to your true identity you will at any moment have an identity. Do you stop there? Or do you keep going? Those who claim victory in the race appear to be pigeonholed in life, incapable of change, often completely intolerant of change. Barkalounger recliner static. “Can you see if we have any beer in the refrigerator? I’m too exhausted to search. If we have one, cold you bring it to me with some chips. Oh! Wait! Yes on the beer, but I just found some chips on the pillow." Are you one to have found pieces of your many former selves that are sufficient enough to serve as your current identity?
Sorry if this casts self doubt on who you are; not sorry if it gets you off the Barkalounger where you sit in a pile of old broken chips of self identity. At least walk into the kitchen, open the refrigerator door, and peer in. You might find more than leftovers and an old can of beer. You might see ingredients you can use to make a gourmet meal you never experienced.
*From the book: “But here in the North I would slough off my southern ways of speech. Indeed, I would have one way of speaking in the North and another in the South. Give them what they wanted down South, that was the way. If Dr. Bledsoe could do it, so could I.”
**From the book: “He always looked good when he was finished fixing himself up, but he was a secret slob anyway, if you knew him the way I did.” AND “But it was freezing cold, and I took my red hunting hat out of my pocket and put it on—I didn’t give a damn how I looked.”
“Who are you?” I might ask.
Please don’t respond, “I’m a chef,” I’m a cop,” I’m a Congressman,” “I’m the king,” or “I’m the G.O.A.T.” Those are responses to questions of doing, but not necessarily of being.
Doing vs. Being
That, however, begs a question. Aren’t our identities defined by what we do? How else can we define ourselves? It’s a problem, it seems at first glance, to be analogous to my saying I cannot think of time without thinking of place. I cannot think of So-n-So without thinking of Such—Such. She’s “Mother.” He’s “teacher.” They are “gang members.”
Because many of us believe identity is not bounded solely by doing, we slip into our Merriam-Webster or Cambridge Dictionary character to proclaim identity “as the state or fact of remaining the same one or ones, as under varying aspects or conditions. That makes some sense in the context of the word’s etymology, which derives from the Latin, idem, “the same.”
“I’m not defined by what I do,” you say.
Yes and no. Maybe you don’t define yourself by “doing,” but others define you thus, and you, in turn, define them thus. It’s not a fault; the penchant to do so derives habit and that relationship we have with the physical world and with culture. Plus, we let our five senses affinities guide us. “Gladys? Oh! You should hear her sing.” “Phil? That guy’s a comedian if there ever was one. Funny, really funny.” “Have you seen the antique cars Bob restored? He’s worth a fortune because of them.” Are there Gladyses, Phils, and Bobs outside of doing? If so, how so?
Take Jennifer Garner, for Instance
I think of a Capital One Venture credit card commercial in which actress Jennifer Garner says that we might know her from “her other job,” but then mentions her personal business of running Once upon a Farm as she walks through an orchard and greenhouse. Wow! Jennifer has not one, but TWO identities. Both, it seems, defined for others by WHAT she does.
Who is the “real Jennifer Garner”? I have no doubt she is more than either actress or Garner the Gardener, more than a Mrs. through two marriages and is more than partner with another guy, more than mother of three. But do I know her identity in the sense of her “being the same under “varying circumstances”? Do I know whether or not Jennifer thinks she has an identity peculiar (distinctive) to her and to no other? Even if I knew her personally, would I be able to define that identity?
Everything in my limited glossary of personality plays out in my assessment of another’s identity. Pretend I know Jennifer. Do I assess her identity thus? She’s optimistic. She’s hard working. She’s caring. She’s hypothetically or otherwise difficult to get along with—no wonder she’s been divorced. She’s been the victim of cheating husbands. She’s a Simon Legree boss on her farm. Look at the limitations of my identity glossary. None of the foregoing might apply. Maybe Jennifer is Mother Theresa incarnate. But even if she were, that identity would still be one based, for me at least, on “doing.”
The Quest
Going off to find oneself through adventures, going off to find oneself in a cabin in the woods, going off to a wellness center, to a psychotherapist, to a cult leader, to a guru, to a tattoo parlor, yeah all those can be versions of a search for identity. Joining a cult, joining a mob wearing keffiyehs and protesting in favor of a terrorist group, singing with a group some civil rights song in support of government waste…gosh, the possibilities are endless in the search for identity, for self, for self-meaning.
Defining oneself is hard because we are all multiple identities: child, teen, young adult, middle aged adult, dependent, independent thinker, political animal, philosopher, and pseudo versions of ideal identities…driven, indifferent…commanding, subservient…foolish, wise…
Faulty parallelism of mixing adjectives and nouns aside and a faulty modifier thrown in this sentence just to keep the grammatically and syntactically astute among you awake, the search for identity is, I believe, as complex and as frustrating as any human endeavor for good reason: Before aligning all the wavelengths of our lives in a laser like identity, we bounce between what we are and what we expect to be, the mirrors of identity we use for syncing the light that exits a pinhole.
And there’s a further complication: We wear masks we believe appropriate to each social setting, so staying “the same” in “varying circumstances” is difficult at best. Do we wear those masks as we search for identity beyond the confines of society? Do we wear them on a visit to the Guru in the Temple in the Himalayas? As we scale a cliff? As we sit in a cabin in the woods?
Whoa! Now I’m wondering if there really is such a thing as identity sans doing. Yet, all around me I see people in search of their identities. Young people in Goth; young people as “influencers,” merely by fashion or daily doings. Reality show stars as identities to be emulated. Eight billion of us, but usually only those in the saddle of ease and affluence riding off into the sunset of self-discovery. By the way, how far off is that horizon?
In Fiction
Characters in search of identity abound in literature from ancient to modern times: Gilgamesh, Odysseus, Aeneas, Beowulf, Dante, Ralph Ellison’s narrator in Invisible Man,* J. D. Salinger’s Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye. ** The theme is dominant in coming of age stories and tales of both rugged self-sustaining individuals and victims of diseases, cruelty, and doubts. It’s common because it’s common in real life. Maybe you have said or thought “I’m in search of who I am.”
A Sometime Thing or Full Time Job?
The thrill of an amusement park ride can provide a momentary feeling of self. Dangerous voluntary risk-taking, such as swimming with sharks, climbing ice or rocks, or parachuting can focus our attention on “true identity” though the focus might be little more than a rush of neurotransmitters. “When I’m parachuting, I’m my real self.” “Climbing Half Dome in Yosemite and Skiing down Canon Mountain in New Hampshire give me that ‘I’m alive!’ sensation. Nothing beats it.” Others can say with regard to risks not foolishly taken on a whim, “Battling that disease taught me who I am.” “Meditation is the path some choose to seek their identities, their “true” selves. For others, a simpler path lies in a digital capture. “Look, here I am on top of Mt. Lookatme.” For still others, it’s a TikTok or YouTube short. “Look how many views I got.”
Parmenides saw the world as rather static; Heraclitus, as dynamic. Being frames our lives for the former; becoming frames our lives for the latter. I tend to view the world as Heraclitean flow (You can’t put your foot in the same river twice), but I temper that view with Zeno’s paradox that argues Achilles could never overtake a tortoise with as head start in a race or that one never reaches the end of a race because one has to overcome being halfway, then halfway of that, then halfway of that ad infinitum. If there is such a “thing” as a “true self,” then it’s that distant finish line we don’t get to because of our fractional approach.
On your way to your true identity you will at any moment have an identity. Do you stop there? Or do you keep going? Those who claim victory in the race appear to be pigeonholed in life, incapable of change, often completely intolerant of change. Barkalounger recliner static. “Can you see if we have any beer in the refrigerator? I’m too exhausted to search. If we have one, cold you bring it to me with some chips. Oh! Wait! Yes on the beer, but I just found some chips on the pillow." Are you one to have found pieces of your many former selves that are sufficient enough to serve as your current identity?
Sorry if this casts self doubt on who you are; not sorry if it gets you off the Barkalounger where you sit in a pile of old broken chips of self identity. At least walk into the kitchen, open the refrigerator door, and peer in. You might find more than leftovers and an old can of beer. You might see ingredients you can use to make a gourmet meal you never experienced.
*From the book: “But here in the North I would slough off my southern ways of speech. Indeed, I would have one way of speaking in the North and another in the South. Give them what they wanted down South, that was the way. If Dr. Bledsoe could do it, so could I.”
**From the book: “He always looked good when he was finished fixing himself up, but he was a secret slob anyway, if you knew him the way I did.” AND “But it was freezing cold, and I took my red hunting hat out of my pocket and put it on—I didn’t give a damn how I looked.”
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