Who am I?
This question haunts us, timelessly, all of us. For it is the foundation of every experience of existence, though one may pass through life without ever answering it. One may live an entire lifetime without recognizing the answer.
It is here a matter of the origin of identity, assumed to be known. But can such a principle even be conceived? Are we, human beings, reducible to a concept? I believe the mind to be limited.
When I see the other — who may be myself — he is reduced to qualities, flaws, a career, memories; in short, to an impression. Identity is thought of as fixed: a stasidentity — the illusion of an immutable self presented to the world in order to conceal the inner ferment of latent seeds.
Am I a style?
Ricoeur contradicts this: I would be a narrative. Narrative identity.
Yet again, it seems, a reduction. For a narrative is thought; it follows a logic. And yet one may "twist," as we say today. The devotee will argue that the seeds were already present. Nevertheless, we return to the initial problem: identity is indiscernible. To admit the existence of the unconscious is to admit that we shall never fully know ourselves — and even less, others.
What man would see, in the child just born, a future murderer? What child, what adolescent, or what adult — a fortiori "sound of mind" — would imagine himself capable of infamy? And yet one may deny being capable of it, deny being able to commit the irreparable. Thus we often define ourselves negatively: as not being that.
Yet this rests only upon an intimate impression. And to judge oneself demands considerable effort.
Who are you?
Name, age, profession.
It often stops there.
Yet identity — in its last layer, the imported one, more or less irredeemable — is not defined so. The gap is often abyssal between what I imagine of myself and my real investment in life. Identity is therefore the imperfect abstraction of what one may be within a world of others. A world, because one defines oneself only through belief: the religious man and the atheist do not share the same conception of man.
And identity is sought, for one needs to know who walks through the Vast Forest of Existence. Thus we often define ourselves by a conduct, by emotions, by an idea.
This is what I wish to be to you.
This is what I shall be to you.
And what I shall be to you was.
And yet, is this not again a simplification? Through speech, I create. This supposes not only the uniformity of a shared language, or of the effect produced by it, but that all, under the same conditions, would be capable of attaining the same result. Because language structures thought — Orwell reminded us so forcefully with Newspeak — and because thought may bring forth the self, the cases are diverse. This is why speaking of identity remains misty. Idemiosyncrasy seems more accurate.
Let us take an artist: his work may appear coherent in the eyes of the public, yet he himself perceives the contradictions, the doubts and the failures that shaped it. This tension between internal and external perception is idemiosyncrasy.
However, this may be valid only for the individual himself. For others, one has an identity. For oneself, idemiosyncrasy. Irremediably, the other — the others — possess only a partial vision of ourselves; the submerged part of the iceberg, one might say. An object, in a Sartrean vision.
From there sometimes emerges the frustration of feeling misjudged, misunderstood. Within this kingdom of selves — what we are, outward or inward — the king is ephemeral. Let us specify that it is not a democracy where each self would possess an equal vote. At most, they advise.
This is why identity seems indiscernible. One focuses on an individual rather than on the acts of this kingdom. And yet I am still not the history of this monarchy. Unless one stops at the past — which no one truly envisions. The combinations are multiple. From almost nothing, one will seize power and act.
Nevertheless, let us not caricature. This is not schizophrenia. For we do not possess a duplication of personality; rather, personality itself exists only as an artificial ensemble. Yet it is clear that there exists a certain criterion of unification. A solidarity, if one prefers.
I would not kill myself, for it would harm the kingdom.