I am thinking about identity again. I guess I think about it most of the time.
A couple of months ago I posted about Identity and Nationality, and then later I talked about Identity and Objects. However, I am still struggling with my own identity. As I said before identity is basically what you identify yourself with. In other words my identity is based on whatever I find I have similarities with. In its essence identity would be completely relative to what I know and what surrounds me. It all goes down to comparisons.
In my favorite book in the whole world, The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster, there is a short episode where Milo, the main character is sent to meet "The Giant". He heads over to the house with an inscription above the door that reads "The Giant". After knocking an ordinary man comes out claiming to be the smallest giant in the world. He then sends Milo to the other side of the house to find "The Midget". Here Milo finds a man who looks exactly like The Giant, but who claims to be the tallest midget in the world. He then gets send to find the Fat Man and the Skinny Man...of course Milo realizes they are all the same person. Here is an excerpt:
"I think you're all the same man," said Milo Emphatically.
"S-S-S-S-S-H-H-H-H-H-H-H," he cautioned, putting his finger to his lips and drawing Milo closer. "Do you want to ruin everything? You see, to tall men I'm a midget, and to short men I'm a giant; to the skinny ones I'm a fat man, and to the fat ones I'm a thin man. That way I can hold four jobs at once. As you can see, though, I'm neither tall nor short nor fat nor thin. In fact, I'm quite ordinary, but there are so many ordinary men that no one asks their opinion about anything."
I pretty much agree with this; We can only be described in comparison to what we know and what surrounds me. If I go to some far away village up in the mountains of Ecuador, where they have little contact with foreigners, I am pretty sure I will be one of the tallest people the villagers have ever met. To them I will be considered tall, or even extremely tall, but I consider myself average, even short at times, because I have met taller people.
So maybe that is why I have troubles with identity. If I constantly learn new things and everyday I see different things, then I have to place myself in context every time that I add any piece of knowledge to my life. Any object that I interact with should have the capacity to change the way I feel about myself and how I view myself with the world; ideas and thoughts should have a similar effect. However, this doesn't really help me with my identity issues. Maybe some day I will figure it out.
If you have any thoughts about where identity comes from, let me know!
