Really interesting article about the self.
And an excerpt:
'I now think my question about whether we can be persuaded into the “right” belief about our “true selves” rests on the false idea that there is some truth waiting to be discovered. And that we can get at it with enough evidence, as though the Alex of today was waiting, dormant, inside the Alex of 2000, and that the right sort of evidence could have revealed him. Of course it wasn’t.
'The traits and preferences and perspectives Alex now takes to define himself didn’t exist to be discovered when he was wondering who he really was; they were made in and by the decision to walk away. Perhaps the challenge in changing our minds about who we really are is not to rationally persuade ourselves into a new story about who we are, but to learn to live for periods of our life without one.
'This sounds like a deeply frightening prospect, if you think that selves just are – or depend upon – a coherent narrative. But life without pre-written story can also be enormously fun. That’s part of what was so great about the episodes of Faking It that ended as successfully as Alex’s: you got to watch the childish wonder of people realising they were capable of the things they had declared they could never do. It was hard not to well up when people broke through their rigid views of themselves to find joy and promise in the possibility of life without a script.'
I believe it was making the point that we all live to a narrative. But perhaps we believe there is a different narrative - the 'true' self. But how about life without a narrative?!
No comments:
Post a Comment