Do You Really Know You???

Individuals may be better understood when viewed through time. The best way might be to build (writing / putting together) a life-history, our own or of someone else, that can act as the glue that connects seemingly separate events in a coherent story. It is a thread of time that connects and creates a sense of one-ness, explaining the present and future in relation to the past.

When we think of life-histories, we almost always think in terms of a biography. The problem with biographies is that a description from one viewpoint of a life-history can never completely describe all events. It can, however, act to communicate a coherent perception even though there may be plenty of misunderstanding and illusion remaining.

Autobiographies are also flawed in that while they may or may not be honest, it is a singular viewpoint from 'inside the machine' that can never be objective. They do, however, give meaning to the individual as they stitch together events and find personal meaning.

Bourdieu (1987) notes that constructing a life-history has less to do with being a reflection of life itself, but more to do with being a technique for reconstructing experience, a device for producing the experience of self as being in harmony. He also believes that while the 'unified-self' is not a complete illusion, it neither is natural nor fundamentally human. Society includes many individualizing methods. 

As an example, he describes a person's name like this:

"The proper name is the visible affirmation of the identity of the bearer across time and space, the basis of the unity of one's successive manifestations, and of the socially accepted possibilities of integrating these manifestations in official records, curriculum vitae, cursus honorum, police record, obituary, or biography which constitute life as a finite sum through the verdict given in a temporary or final reckoning." (Bourdieu, 1987)

The life-history 'illusion' is that a proper name refers to a group of features or traits that define the permanent core of a 'self' that exists before the history. 

Bourdieu claims that no such basis exists, and that legal, governmental and beautiful personalities are not related, therefore making it difficult to identify a single 'person'. In the legal sense, many attributes of the person are conferred rather than are intrinsic.

What would your life-history look like?

Have you ever thought about it?

Would you like to better understand who you really are???

TJ

Works Cited:

Bourdieu, P. (1987). The biographical illusion. Working Papers and Proceedings of the Centre for Psychosocial Studies (Univ. of Chicago) 14, 1-7

Unpacking Boxes (2)

You tell the world who you are
in a million different ways.
Some are subtle, some are not.

But it doesn't seem to matter:
this world has already got you pegged.

When you were born they put you in a little box,
and slapped a label on it.
So they could keep things organized,
and not have to think about what’s inside.

Over time you learn to make yourself comfortable
packaging your identity in different combinations
until you feel like you belong,
and can wear your labels proudly.

But there’s a part of you that never really found a home
rattling around in categories that couldn’t do you justice.

You look around at other people,
trying to judge how loosely they fit in their own lives
sensing a knot of confusion hidden beneath a name tag.

And you realize we’re still only strangers,
who assume we already know what the other is going to say,
as if the only thing left to talk about is
who belongs in what category
and which labels are offensive.

You have to wonder if these boxes are falling apart.
If we should be writing our identities by hand,
speaking only for ourselves, in our own words,
taking our chances out in the open
and meet each other as we are,
asking: “What is it like being you?”

—and be brave enough to admit
that we don’t already know the answer.

Maybe it’ll mean that we’ve finally arrived,
just “unpacking the boxes”
making ourselves at home.

And maybe we’ll look back and wonder
how we managed to live in the same house for so long,
and never stop to introduce ourselves.

TJ