Travel Notes S2 E4: On Identity
Originally published on Medium on January 6, 2019.
All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players and one man in his time plays many parts….
Why do we look for self worth through others eyes?
Is it because looking within yourself is too hard? Too scary? Too complicated?
I look at my past self through the eyes of a different person, a little older, a little wiser as the saying goes.
I can occasionally act out the same thoughts, actions and words as my past self; as an actor slipping into a favourite role, one they’ve played for years, one that feels as comfortable as crashing out on your old living room sofa, But increasingly I feel its more for the benefit of others than myself.
We each present personas to the world; sets of behaviours, interests and priorities which ‘fit in’ to whichever social setting, social system, social life we are part of within a certain space and time. We do this, because frankly its easier than than the alternative. It’s easier to turn strangers into acquaintances, into friends, into…….. more.
Yet if we don’t have another to judge our value, our worthiness to be known, our decisions that have led us to this point you are faced with the question of what persona should you wear for yourself?
This question partly explains the popularity of social media; we always have an audience before us and a stage to present ‘our best self’ upon; it delays perhaps permanently the need for us to answer the question of ‘who are you?’ Truthfully.
Each persona we ‘own’ has its own strengths and weaknesses, its own incentives and penalties, its own set of priorities whether these are consciously chosen or not. We’re hardwired as social beings and henceforth need social worth and each social ‘system’ we exist within has its own interpretation of what that worth, that value is. This trait is extenuated by our own adaptable natures; we’ve evolved to change ourselves to succeed in whichever environment we’re dropped into, We struggle, we learn, we adapt.
This isn’t to say this is a negative aspect of our psyche; its taken us from cave dweller to penthouse dweller after all; yet we should be honest about the potential damage it does to us a whole. If we’re constantly playing different roles for different audiences, competing to win in games with contradictory rule-sets, building walls between the different lives we lead; does that sound healthy to you?
You only need to look at the frequency of men and women experiencing ‘mid life crisis’ or suffering mental health crises at retirement to see the impact. Living your life through the lense of another person, community, company makes decision making infinitely simpler. What persona to where today? What are the incentives of the system that persona resides in? How do I optimise my decision making for that system? Then when that system is taken away, or perhaps proven to be but a shadow of the value you’ve placed on its, you’re faced with the realisation that you perhaps didn’t make the best decisions at some point in the distant past, that you could have taken other paths, that you’ve ‘missed out’.
Or why people swing from one relationship to another; its terrifying to not have a character to play for another, to validate your decisions, to limit the scope of the decisions you have to make. Studies have shown that we are capable of making only a limited number of decisions per day; inside a relationship (or family unit) decision making is scaled beyond just yourself, they can be shared and apportioned amongst those involved.
So what’s the alternative? How can we live lives as ‘our true selves’ without splitting ourselves into ever smaller pieces? To find contentment in ourselves whether you’re under observation of the panopticon or not?
Answers on a postcard please ;-)