I was struck by a recent comment by Gordo Byrn where he had fully deleted his twitter account and started afresh because he had moved on from the people that knew him as an athlete. This “nah, I’m not that guy anymore” type of action made me think about how I have been different people during my lifetime. We all have to a certain extent - “identity” as a social concept includes how we appear and see ourselves in our work lives, our family, our community, and so on. And it’s variable (or as Verdi would have us believe, flighty or fickle).
’s wonderfully snarky also pointed me in the direction of looking at Identity, this time in the guise of a philosophical Vulture piece on The Velveteen Rabbit. The thinking around what part of us is Real is quite profound.La donna è mobile
Qual piuma al vento,
muta d'accento
e di pensiero.— Rigoletto, Joe Green
“Wasn’t I Real before?” the little rabbit asks. “You were Real to the Boy,” the fairy gently replies, “because he loved you. Now you shall be Real to every one.”
— The Velveteen Rabbit, Margery Williams Bianco
At 54 my therapy visits this year have exposed some basic confusion about my own identity, both now and in the past. Over time there has been Work Brad, Creative Brad, IronBrad, Butter Brad, Overwhelmed Brad, Software Geek Brad, Family Brad, Brad the Bard, and so on. Some were based on learned morals, some on fear, some on a tendency to addiction, some on compassion, some on the need to create, some on the need to use my body hard, some on a deep desire to help … but it’s hard find any real sense of “Me”. This leaves me rudderless but also finding an opportunity to practice being someone new.
Some would rather never change having found that sweet spot of knowing themselves and fitting in. That’s great, except that the place and time where we are “fitting in” rarely remains static. Some of us took a different path for the formation of our identities where we never quite found that place. As adults were are better able to “choose” our identity than we were as children, lacking control over our environment, family, and emotions.
Identity is never “final” and continues to develop through the lifespan. Knowing one’s identity accurately increases self-esteem and reduces depression and anxiety. When people are doing what they think they should be doing, they are happy.
When people misrepresent themselves or present themselves in out-of-character ways to impress an audience, the behavior is unnatural and exhausting. The behavior requires greater cognitive resources, because the mind is filled with self-doubt, self-consciousness, and negative thoughts. Moreover, when people look to immediate audiences to help them define who they should be, how they should look, and what they should do, they are in danger of acting in ways that endanger their health…
— Psychology Today1, Shahram Heshmat Ph.D.
What does “being someone new” mean in the context of longevity and thriving longer in life?
The ability to change some of our persona and habits is crucial to avoiding stuckedness. It’s so easy to just have another day be the same, so easy to live with the way things are. This is the part where we build new identities by trying a new language, learning to play a new instrument, cultivating new relationships, or taking up a sport later in life.
This doesn’t mean changing our morality, ethics, or creativity, rather it’s building the ability to continue to adapt and change.
Shahram Heshmat Ph.D., Basics of Identity, Psychology Today, 2014, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/science-choice/201412/basics-identity