A thought about identity

[pandora_parrot]

Identity.

The definition of which I am.

What if what I am cannot be defined in the moment? Perhaps "I" am the sum total of who I aspire to be, who I am becoming, and who I've been.

Perhaps identity is the convergence of past and future into the present.

Comments

[uncledark.livejournal.com]

Neuroscience has located an area of the brain which is responsible for conscious awareness of self. (The medial prefrontal cortex, I believe, though I admit that I haven't read deeply in this area.) It organizes memories and experiences as being "about me," and does not activate when thinking about other people.

This would suggest that one's sense of self and personal identity are a web of feelings, ideas, and experiences that are knitted into a consciously apprehensible whole by the actions of this area.

So, well, yeah.

[paradox-puree.livejournal.com]

Heh. You've simply said, "Identity is over here."

My contemplation here is "Yes, but what is its composition? What feelings, ideas, and experiences feed into the definition of self?"

[uncledark.livejournal.com]

What feelings, ideas, and experiences feed into the definition of self?

All of them. If you don't want some of them, you have to work to root them out, after the fact. Even the contemplation of stuff that you don't consider part of "you," as by rejecting those ideas you are confirming a view of self that does not include them.

Of course, some have a stronger impact and more lasting effect than others. Individual variation and all.

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

Hmm. So with well-placed use of a ball-peen hammer one could make tea-partiers into socialists? Hmmm..... :)

[uncledark.livejournal.com]

If only it were that easy...