Search for Identity
James
R. Fisher, Ph.D.
©
February 17, 2016
NOTE:
This
is one of the previously published essays in periodicals and trade journals
that will appear in my new book, A WAY OF THINKING ABOUT THINGS. It will be Kindle e-book. At the end of this piece, you will see where
and when it was published.
* * *
With the crumbling of unfailing spiritual symbols,
we have become untethered from ourselves as person and each other. We grovel in the uncertainty of our personal identity. We are no longer sure who or what we are.
We have retrogress from “making one’s way” to being
obsessed with “finding oneself.” The
urgent question is no longer “What can I do?” but “Who can I be?” Who
has taken precedence over what? We see this in everyday life as people
struggle with the question who is right not
what is right.
People as persons are searching for a “new self”
with a multitude of personal trainers, charismatic gurus, Zen masters,
psychologists, psychotherapists and astrologists, who are at the ready to show
them the way.
Identity however is a fragile mechanism that is
largely not of our making as we grow from the outside in, not the inside
out. We become everyone else before we
break free, if we somehow manage to do so, by rebelling against the programming
of our parents, teachers, preachers, friends, and favorite heroes.
Beyond these
limitations, identity is created from experience. Identity is sensitive, not flamboyant,
private, and not public.
Nor is identity
found in the latest technological fad. On
the contrary, the latest hi-tech widget can further isolate the individual from
a sense of his or her unique self.
Technology
has unwittingly become the universal pacifier for anxiety in the form of the latest
handheld electronic gadget. So employed,
it ceases to be a necessary tool, but a convenient a prop.
For example,
Apple, Inc. has discovered that annually repackaging its iPhone in tantalizing
colors ensures that people like a herd of robotic junkies will rush to purchase
it no matter how superficial its modifications as it has become a toy of the
mind.
Identity has
shifted from the self to super heroes and celebrities while masculine and
feminine roles have merged into gender neutral.
We are no longer sure what it is to be a man or woman. We have also lost pride in work and joy in
our craftsmanship. We are pressed into
mediocrity to fit into a cybernetic machine that programs us not to make waves
and to be safe hires on the job, forfeiting our individualism.
As a status
obsessed society, we have an abundance of status symbols without status, a
plethora of information sources but little new knowledge. History and tradition are playing on another
channel.
Place
and Space
There is no longer a hometown as most everyone is on the move. A rarity is a person who lives where he was
born, where values and beliefs have roots, where the distant voices of youth
still ring true. Every day bulldozers
crush landmarks of this hollowed past to make room for the new with little
pause as to the impact on identity.
Evidence of this is that the young no longer look to
the old for what has proven true. Instead,
the old mimic the young in their ephemeral obsessions. No one wants to grow old or grow up or be
left behind. Indeed, no one claims to be
comfortable with the past.
Society has replaced its moral compass with the
existential. We have lost our way relegating
history to the attic of our minds.
If the past is prologue to the future, are we
embracing the future blindfolded? The
void of place is now filled with empty space.
Everyone seems anxious to be somewhere else doing something else than being
where they are doing what they are doing.
This pathology of normalcy has
reduced connection to an electronic grid of text messages.
Space has taken over place. Homes, hotels, shopping malls, athletic
arenas, churches, and educational institutions are all bigger and more imposing,
but have acquired a tragic sameness no matter where you find yourself. The quiet sanctity of place has been reduced
to monotonous and predictable opulent self-consciousness.
Mobility defines our rootlessness as we chase after
each other in Brownian motion in other-directness with little sense of our own self-direction. Obsessed with knowing the right people and
being on the right track, we find ourselves gullible to opinion makers, polls,
bestselling books, lifestyle fads and cliques.
We are willing to place our security hostage to the celebrated and acclaimed
to see that our children attend the right schools, pursue the right professions,
live in the right neighborhoods, and hang out with the right people.
With place, there is a sense of belonging; with
space, a sense of rootlessness. Place nurtures
us; space collects us. Place tells us
who we are; space erases identity.
Lack
of Identity Rituals
Identity is a ritual that unfolds through living,
learning and experiencing life.
Identity is neither totally self-created nor indiscriminately
imposed by others. It is learned and
earned behavior by embracing fear, anxiety, insecurity, and embarrassment
rather than retreating from such inevitable psychological encounters. Identity is a private affair and not found by
flaunting our stuff.
Young people bleach their hair, streak it with
blaring colors, cut it short, grow it long, or shave their heads, all to draw attention
to themselves. They paint their bodies
with tattoos or wear clothes that shock.
They scream for heroes, vicariously transporting themselves from the
mundane to be preoccupied with violent sports.
They plunge off jagged cliffs into shallow pools, swim into the depths
of dark caves, climb treacherous mountains, or bungee jump from great heights,
canoe through the rapids of perilous waters, or drop out of school and life.
They are terrorized by the boring and the mundane,
and can only feel themselves alive when living on the edge. Curiously, adults are aping their behavior
because they have lost interest in leading.
In a society with no one in charge, sentiments of
doubt prevail. Romantic love, family
unity, patriotism, morality, civic pride, school spirit, the transcendent majesty
of religion and natural beauty have been shelved for the synthetic.
In this void, identity rituals are not only desirable
but necessary. It gives people a sense
of place and space through belonging, energizing routinized existence to meaningful
connection with family, church, school, and community.
The lack of identity rituals is largely the reason
for the poverty of sentiment. Sacred
anchors have been replaced by pseudo-symbols of commercialism with synthetic
rituals. The rites of passage have been
replaced by the mania of spectator sport -- NFL the Super Bowl, the NHL, MLB,
and other sports revenues – eclipsing Hollywood and commercial television.
These rituals fail to recharge our emotional
batteries the way Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving and Presidents’ Day once
did. Current identity rituals have lost
touch with touch. We seem ashamed to proclaim
our heritage and for that self-alienation fill the void with self-estrangement.
Personal
Excellence magazine, November 2000
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