Identity

No,no…. I am not taking a chainsaw to Dr Id! My apologies if you tuned in today hoping for blood. Did you really think that even a Pseudo-Buddhist would go in for such gratuitous gore? Tsk Tsk!

(By the way… if you want to skip my ramblings, and get on with the contemplation, you can do that here. Otherwise, you’re stuck with me for a dozen or so extra paragraphs.)

Now that you’ve been denied your horror-fest… I’m sure you’re wondering exactly what, pray tell, a Pseudo-Buddhist Contemplation might be?

Funny you should ask. I was just about to tell you.

Ahem.

I greatly admire Buddhist doctrine and practices. The stress on tolerance, loving kindness, relieving suffering, and centeredness seems a Very Good Thing. I am not a suitable Buddhist, however — I’m fond of my own cultural orientation, devoted to my own spiritual path, and …. well.. a whole lot too lazy to make a good Buddhist.

But I’ve picked up a few Buddhist influences here and there, mostly meditations (actual, real-live dyed-in-the-mantra-type Buddhists don’t mind if non-Buddhists learn their practices, so it’s guilt free appropriation).

By the time these practices and ideas have been run through my non-Buddhist filters, they’re a bit mangled, and I can no longer properly call them Buddhist meditations. Still, I have to call them something …. thus, pseudo-Buddhist.

Not only is the practice I’m writing about today not exactly Buddhist anymore… but it isn’t properly a meditation, either. In my ancient tradition of pseudo-Buddhism, the term “meditation” is reserved for a disciplined, focused practice of attention. This isn’t that.

It’s more.. well… contemplative. A quiet, casual, non-stressing, non-focused, non-attentive sort of mulling-over-things, in the psuedo-Buddhist tradition.

The *thing* we’re going to be contemplating (pseudo-Buddhistically speaking) is the nature of your inner core, or more precisely, the trappings that obscure and confuse and distort your view of that inner-core: those parts of your identity that seem to be You, but aren’t really You.

But when do we get to the dismemberment, you ask?

Patience, Grasshopper. We’re almost there.

Dr. Id taught us that our identity is who we are in the world. When the world shifts around us, our identities shift in relation - and unpredictable shifts in the world mean unpredictable shifts in our identity. Being identity-destabilized is disorienting at best; at its worst, it leads to a sense of worthlessness and deep depression.

Buddhist teachings stress a connection between suffering, and our attachment to ego/self/identity, so it seemed natural to turn to my pseudo-Buddhist practices to look for tools in dealing with the modern challenges to identity.

Which brings us to the dismemberment. Finally!

But you’ll have to click through to part 2 for that.

Go on. Read it. There’s another cute girl there, with a power tool.

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MindTWEAK: Renunciation is not getting rid of the things of this world, but accepting that they pass away. - Aitken Roshi

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(If you haven’t read part 1 yet, you can find it here. You dont have to read it, of course, but it provides context, a few laughs, and a really cute chick with a chainsaw, so it’s probably worth your time. )

Now, on with the contemplating!

Make yourself comfy. Sink into the chair a bit.

Soften your eyes.

Let your mind wander over all of the think about the labels and parts and bits that make you “who you are”; the pieces of you that make up your identity.

Are you Mother, Doctor, Artist, Husband, Computer Geek? Are you about beautiful, rich, dark-skinned, plain-Jane?

Consider briefly how those identifications affect your interactions in the world… and consider the opposite: how interactions in the world affects these identifications.

Now, gently… one by one, strip them away. Take away the labels. Let them dissolve before your eyes, and watch. See what happens to your idea of who you are. See what parts of “You” change when you dismember your identity. Note which parts stay the same.

Seem a little confusing? I’ll walk you through it.

We’ll start with a simple example, a more shallow bit of identity — something like, say, your hair.

Would you still be yourself, if your hair was a different color? What if it was shorter, or longer? What if it was shaved off, or grown out and lush? Would you still be yourself?

What if you weighed significantly more, or less? Younger, or older? What if you dressed differently? Would you still be “You” ?

You may or may not cringe at the idea of a major change in your appearance. It may be uncomfortable to imagine your head shaved, or a 100lb difference in your weight. You’d look a bit different, certainly… and maybe you’d even act a bit different, but you can probably imagine that you’d still be “You”.

But what if you suddenly hated your favorite food? Stopped (or started) reading fiction? Developed or lost a taste for slasher films?

Would you still be “You” if you had a different job? What if you were a goat-farmer, an advertising exec, a ballet dancer? how does that change your concept of self? Does it change?

What if you lost a hand? Both arms? (I did promise you dismemberment.) The use of your legs? What if you were confined to a wheel chair?

What if you weren’t?

What if your personality changed? Your sexual orientation? Would you still be you?

There are no right or wrong answers. All of these things are part of how we define ourselves, and part of your identity. Stripping them away changes you, changes how you relate, changes how others relate. Some changes are subtle, some are drastic.

By imagining these things, looking at how they change (or don’t change) the core of who you are, you’ll strengthen your ability to deal with actual changes in how you relate in the world.

The better you get at dismembering your identity in your head, the more stable your core identity will become. The more of the transient bits of “You” stop identifying with…. the more you’ll discover about the essential “You-ness” that remains. you’ll become.

Working through this exercise takes a lifetime. The longer you’re alive, the more labels you’ll accumulate, the more ideas about “who you are” that you’ll need to examine. As each layer falls apart, another is revealed… at first the new layer will seem like the “real you” but if you test that layer, over time, its likely to be revealed as just another layer to be shed.

The process is enlightening stabilizing, and strengthens your sense of self, even as it challenges it. You may find your ego dissolving, you may find a sort of pseudo-Buddhist enlightenment, or even a true Buddhist sense of enlightenment. You may discover that “You” don’t exist, or you may discover an archetypal inner self, that will serve you throughout your lifetime. You might discover your inner goat-farmer, or that you really are a simple red-haired Irish girl who loves to party.

Whatever you discover about yourself, it’s bound to make you more stable in the face of the modern challenges to personal identity. You’ll suffer less, and provide stability to others, which in turn will help stabilize the world at large.

It’s a tweakingly-cool power tool, isn’t it?

(If you still haven’t read part 1, you can go back and read it here. And for you guys… The other cute girl awaits you there.)

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MindTWEAK: Happiness does not come from having much, but from being attached to little. - Venerable Cheng Yen

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After the interview with Dr. Id, I walked away with one clear, new understanding: In our modern world, a fixed, lifelong identity is not necessarily a constant. 

The same theme is reflected in the “making meaning” posts; ”meaning” is not a constant thread through our lives, but a shifting changing thing, which often requires our active participation.

Similar shifting patterns are  showing up in the workplace - previously stable job expectations of a 20-40 year worklife with one company are eroding, replaced by short term project-teams, consultants and temp workers.

Relationships are changing the same way; instead of a pairing expected to last for a lifetime, or even decades, “long term relationships” are measured in years, and family units have drastically changed. 

A less obvious reflection of this idea is in plate-spinning productivity — the stress on focus isn’t not on a single, constant goal (a job, family, hobbies, a book) but on balancing and maintaining a shifting table of projects and interests.

All of this flies in the face of a major cultural expectation: that we should have a single defining purpose or goal in our life, that we need to find ourselves once, and then be done with it.

 I’ve never quite bought that idea; I’ve always felt we each fill many purposes and places in our lives, some of them simply by happenstance, some of our own making, and some which seem fated (whether by some holy power or unavoidable circumstance doesn’t really matter).  Each circumstance, each situation requires that we “find ourselves” in a new way.

I believe this…  and yet, I’m thrown every time my life reinvents itself. In part, this is because my belief isn’t really grounded in our culture, but it’s also because I don’t have any real tools to keep me stable through the changes.

If our jobs, relationships, sense of meaning, and over all identity is not a constant -  we need to find new ways of finding some sort of personal stability, some new constant.

Over time, I’d like to explore some of the ways we can better deal with these changes, find a constant core to who we are, an identity that makes sense and sustains us throughout the shifting territory.

Have you got any suggestions? Any tricks or tips on how you discovered, invented, or found a “self” which carries you through the most turbulent times? I’m not quite sure where this idea will lead, just that it’s bound to be somewhere interesting. __________________________________

MindTweak: There’s something immensely amusing about an psuedo-anonymous blogger writing about identity, don’t you think?
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I was blathering with a friend the other day, when the topic of Adult Identity Development came up. I wasn’t exactly sure what that was, but it sounded mind-tweakish, so I asked him about it. I also asked if we talk about it here so you could find out, too.

He said yes. So Yay.

Sadly, my friend is afflicted by the cursed disease of Privaticus Neuroticus (I told you it was contagious!) and he wishes to remain anonymous.

With that in mind, I’ve taken it upon myself to give him his very own pseudonym: Dr. Ivan Dognonymous, Dr. ID for short. ID for Identity Development, ID for Identity, ID for the id. (And I hope he forgives me for the Dognonymous part.)

So… Ahem.

What Is Identity?
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MT: Hello, Dr.Id… and first, let me say I’m glad to have you here on MindTweaks! You’re an expert in Adult Identity Development, right?

Dr.Id: I study it, anyway. I’m not sure I’m an expert!

MT: Do you mind if we start at the beginning? What exactly *is* identity in this context? I thought I knew, but… isn’t it our idea of who we are?
Id: Roughly, your “identity” is your sense of self in the world… It’s what we call psychosocial.

MT: Psychosocial? Would that mean that identity is a mix of both psychological and social factors? Internal and external ideas of who we are?

Id: Yep.

MT: So identity Development looks at how individuals come to identify with their role in society?

Id: More than just one role… Identity is usually a mix of roles we take on in the world. Examples of basic roles might be son/daughter, brother/sister, friend, worker, and so on… many others are applicable as well.
MT: So because we each fill a lot of roles in relation to the world around us, we have a complex identity made up of them. Got it. And I can see that studying how all of that develops….

And Adult Identity?
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MT: Why study “Adult Identity” specifically? That implies there’s other types, too…

Id: Yes. Your identity as a child and as an adult may be very different - and different processes of development are involved at different stages of life.

MT: Can you talk about those stages?

Id: Sure! In childhood, identity is largely prescribed from outside. Expectations from family and society press on the child, and shape the options available. Since children aren’t yet fully able to see themselves from the outside, looking in, their ability to form their own sense of “self in the world” is limited.

In adolescence, that changes - individuals are capable of deeper self-reflection, and that causes a shift in how they form their identity. This is why society (at least modern, Western society) sets aside a prolonged period to exploring identity options, so the adolescent identity can come to some resolution. It’s when people are allowed room to “find themselves” while a set of greater social constraints remains in place (we don’t encourage adolescent exploration of “murderer identity,” after all.)

By the time they reach adulthood, society expects a fairly stable identity to have been developed.

MT: A stable identity… like settling down into family, a job, a stable identity and reinforcing factors… things that not only allow a person to relate to society, but allows society to relate back to the person?

Id: You got it.

Changing Developments
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MT: But why Adult Identity Development, if an adult’s identity should already be formed?

Id: That’s the expectation — but it doesn’t really fit anymore.
Modern culture is shifting and changing profoundly. Those changes can make maintaining a fixed adult identity unrealistic, problematic, or even impossible.

MT: I think I’m following… but would you give an example?

Id: Here in the US, society expects that most people will retire at about age 65, and we have structures in place based on that expectation

MT: Right… Medicare eligibility, Social Security… hmm… and some companies have forced retirement about that age, too. I guess they reinforce the idea of retirement at 65.
Id: Exactly. But the reality is changing that expectation. Americans are enjoying substantially better health, and living longer, than ever before. At the same time, they’re dealing with increases in the cost of living.

These changes are allowing and/or forcing many people to continue in the active workforce for a longer period. Some need to work to cover what their “retirement” income doesn’t… other healthy, retired individuals are pursuing second careers they always wanted, or are actively pursuing travel, studies, any number of things.

MT: … and that doesn’t fit with the retired and sedentary image we have of seniors, I guess.
Id: No, it doesn’t. Note that the changes suggest both a degree of choice and a degree of challenge; some of the changes to identity happen by choice, some in order to meat a new challenge.

Struggles And Solutions
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MT: Hmm… I can see how changes in technology, in the workplace, ways we work and communicate, economics, terrorism, STDs…. studies in science and neuroscience and the history of religion - all of those things could affect we define and express our identity, and they’re all changing rapidly…

Id: Yes, and society neither anticipates nor handles these sorts of changes very easily. Adults are therefore shaping their identities in this period in uniquely individual ways.
MT: I’m getting the idea that the struggles with personal identity and meaning that so many of us are going through aren’t necessarily due to psychological issues, but that the world has changed, and many of the our ideas about how we expect to fit into the world no longer fit.

So changes in our lives are creating new challenges to our identity, and I’d imagine new solutions, as well?

Id: New solutions may be arrived upon, but to some extent, we are having to try solutions that may not have much of a trial period.

For example, the experimentation of the elderly with new explorations at age 65…do we know if individuals can sustain themselves financially in this new era? No, not really. Do we know what impact the prolonged lifespan will have on support for the younger generation (with wealth usually passed on by virtue of inheritance)? No, not really.

At the same time, I would certainly want to argue that elderly folk should have complete freedom to explore all available options. In part, I support that idea because that is the freedom I want.

Reshaping
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MT: Can you give some examples of how adults are reshaping their identities?

Id: Professionally, both men and women are changing careers in significant ways as never before. Some change in order to adjust to new values - wanting to spend more time with family, less stress, etc. Others change in order to pursue a new interest - “I always wanted to fly an airplane…I’m giving up my bank job to be a pilot!” for example.

The average age of first marriage continues to climb, and many are choosing to never marry. This does not mean, necessarily, that they will not reproduce - which again changes the roles people are in.

Individuals are pursuing more non-conformist possibilities, from fetish exploration to avant garde political affiliations. Mind you, not all adults are doing this, but more options are available, and are being pursued, than ever before.
MT: Do you think these changes are part of why so many alternative lifestyles are cropping up? Explorations of other religions, cultures, sexualities?

Id: I do, indeed. People are looking around, seeing certain areas of dissatisfaction in their lives, certain areas of conformity that they are not willing to maintain, and choosing to pursue alternatives.

Final Thoughts
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MT: Do you have any suggestions for readers on how to cope these challenges and changes to our identity?

Id: My advice, if I may be so bold, is to understand two things…

First of all, no matter how much our culture stresses individuality, society remains a powerful shaping force in all of our lives.

Take our careers as an example. With determination and luck, a few of us can manage to occupy archetypal occupations like blacksmith or royal princess. But no one has a job like warp drive mechanic or surrogate reproductive machine supervisor — the jobs just don’t exist, not yet, anyway. Most of us have to settle for jobs that society provides demand for currently.

As diverse as our world is, there is still a finite number of jobs that society encourages, so society still exerts tremendous influence on us to conform.

MT: I see your point….

Id: Secondly, the power to shape your life, to the extent it is possible, is really yours alone. If you dream of becoming a novelty supplier for harmonica players or an instructor in advanced Klingon language, only you can make that happen (if it can happen). If it can’t happen, then only you will know the angst of accommodating whatever realistic alternatives exist.

Somewhere in the tension between society’s influence and individual preference is where you will find yourself.

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I’d like to thank Dr. Id for participating with us, as well as tolerating the rather questionable moniker I inflicted on him.

He asked me to note that while the answers here are not necessarily academically precise, we should have gotten the general idea.

MindTWEAK: “Ironic, isn’t it.. two anonymous individuals, discussing identity?”

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