I recently wrote a novel (don’t worry, no one else has read it either) called The Sweet Respite of Memory. The dominant theme was one of alchemy in terms of identity- of how one becomes. Whilst I was writing it I considered the central character Auguste, through his memories, in terms of who he was in terms of to himself and in the perception of others. As I was writing the book I realised that Auguste is Auguste throughout at his core. The changes in the book, the process of alchemy, create changes but only in a superficial sense. When all is said and done the Auguste that was at the beginning of the book aged three is the Auguste at the end of the book aged ninety-three.
One of the problems of giving people your work to read is that they generally make one of two assumptions- a) it is autobiographical (whilst it is true that fiction is autobiographical in terms of the imagination) or b) it is about them.
So, how is our identity created or are we as we always are? The process of identification is a big part of self-discovery, of ‘knowing thy self’ and it is through relation that we come to understand the world (and ourselves), which already are but that we do not acknowledge or recognise (sum ergo cogito).
One of the ways that this process happens is through literature, indelible impressions made which are so fragile that they last eternally but that one is in fear of damaging. When I was seventeen/eighteen I read A Descent into the Maelström by Edgar Allan Poe (who studied in Stoke Newington, London as a child in a school which is now a pub- I’ve been there). In the story a man is dragged down into a whirlpool- the details of the story- does he live or die- I cannot remember, I just recall reading the description as he stood there watching the world revolve around him, all of the other things being dragged down with him, and I discovered for the first time true beauty. I have not been able to reread the book in fear of damaging my conception of, and belief in, true beauty.
Other books and characters such as the hopeless Prince Myshkin in Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot have helped me to understand and shape myself (which comes first- self or perception of self, the answer I have put already).
Our notions of ‘self’ are created through relation. If you were in a room full of the most brilliant geniuses you might feel intellectually stupid but if you were in a room with people at the opposite end of the spectrum then you might feel like a genius yourself. Without day you wouldn’t know night blah blah blah.
The concept of fashion (I say concept because I would not know it if it stood before me) relies on contradiction- it is about expressing your individuality in the same manner as everyone else. As Camus wrote in The Rebel there is no such thing as a rebel for once one becomes a rebel one becomes encased in the concept of the rebel (more of which in a later blog). Our very notions of self are concepts and we generally have little interest in things which fall outside of our conceptions. Pericles said that just because one has no interest in politics does not mean that politics has no interest in you. The world exists without us yet without the personal connections there is no world and we may exist, others can create a conception of us, (and to a certain extent there are aspects of us that we cannot know- mannerisms, perception of us when we are not in the room etc) but we do not exist to us even through we are who we are eternally.
However, it is import that that from without sparks what is within and not what is without sparking what is without. As the pioneers of rap music Public Enemy (in 1990 they released a song called Fight The Power with one of the most amusing and poignant lyric about racial equality ‘Most of my heroes don’t appear on no stamps’ and then in 2012 released an album called Most Of My Heroes Still Don’t Appear On No Stamp…) wrote in their song How You Sell Soul To A Soulless People Who Sold Their Soul (Time Is God Refrain))
‘Great people don’t ask comedians, actors and entertainers to lead, great people produce what we need’ – meaning that we have to let the outside bring out what is within, to be ourselves, to be ‘real’ but as the Velveteen Rabbit found (a book that I only found last year- if I had found it before I might have saved a lot of time!)
“Real isn’t how you are made,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.’
‘Does it hurt?’ asked the Rabbit.
‘Sometimes,’ said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. ‘When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.’
‘Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,’ he asked, ‘or bit by bit?’
‘It doesn’t happen all at once,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
Life is a journey of discovery and balance must be found between solitude and the social world for nothing, not even ourselves, is made without relation and what is made cannot come into being if it does not already exist within some conception (I think that answers nature vs nurture for you, tee hee)
‘till next time!
thegreaterfool2016 