Like most people I suppose, I like to believe in the independent, autonomous self: A totally self-directed, self-willed, conscious being that is very particularly 'ME' and only 'ME'. (Although, admittedly I did want to be other people in my adolescence, ranging from Bodie out of the 'Professionals' to JJ Burnel from The Stranglers - but I don't think that counts does it.)
Being 'Me', no matter how painful, tragic, terminally pathetic or fucked up that may be, is a pretty essential prerequisite for having some kind of fixed identity in this strange and ever shifting world.
I appear to have a collection of retrievable memories, experiences and perceptions that belong uniquely to me. I am the author, the (relatively) objective observer and editor of my life narrative: in other words I take responsibility for the decisions I make whilst knowing there is a slight margin of error in the unpredictability of the world to match up to my expectations of it.
Over the last year or so though, I have found that I keep returning to a more Freudian interpretation of human individuality: that we are more products of parental, cultural and biological conditioning than our egoistic, seemingly 'free-spirited' conscious selves can or will admit.
Despite decades of criticism, the basic Freudian model of personality still holds water - its the emphasis on childhood sexuality that has been more or less dismissed.
The Oedipus complex and Penis envy are facets of the theory that have obscured the more revealing and genuinely interesting stuff in a cloud of sniggering and incredulity.
The idea that we are born with this unformed, amoral psyche, a swarming confused mass of insane biological drives: sexual fulfillment, hunger,fight or flight mechanisms and so on, that have to be tamed (repressed), formatted and organised via parental upbringing and culture, appears to me, to explain so many of the negative/deviant aspects of human nature, as well as the more positive traits.
Freud was really the first guy to identify and explore the hidden/unconscious aspects of the human mind, the first to evolve a theory of human motivation that included the cultural, religious and mythical influences that we all now, more or less take for granted.
Sigmund was a bit of pessimist its true. But if you fully comprehend that to be human is also to have a basic animal nature, a nature that is instinctive, impulsive, sexually charged, dictated by the 'Pleasure principle', and that the social contract of culture, the 'Reality Principle' is always going to be at odds with this atavistic creature inside us (the ID), this 'IT' that is so desperate to break free, desperate to satisfy the basest needs of the psyche - then conflict and a fundamental division within this thing called a self is inevitable.
On top of all this you have the 'Super-ego': the persistant nagging voices of mummy and daddy ticking away in your back brain; all those years of potty training, moral instruction, sexual taboos - all their baggage heaped on your still developing neural networks, laying down deep hard grooves, so smooth and waxed through use, that new stimuli will become rejected or assimilated via an almost instantaneous process. This part of the psyche becomes increasingly more militant and right wing with age.
When I talk of 'Me' what I'm really talking about is my Ego, that mostly conscious, self-aware slice of the psychic pie that interfaces with the everyday world. But this slice is so fragile and permeable, so susceptible to the hidden forces of the unconscious and the barrage of messages from culture and its civilizing processes, it is almost impossible to know at any one time who the real YOU is.
Is there ever a real you, or are you a series of subtly/dramatically different persona's, time and context dependent?
Numerous studies over the years have shown how our most personal and treasured memories have a certain degree of fabrication and fabulation about them. Memories are creative, always subject to an unconscious editing process, as well as the often conscious one too.
Human personality and experience is a cherry picking process, both the conscious and the unconscious aspects of our selves are seeking stimuli that will increase pleasure and cohesiveness, whilst decreasing pain and psychic fragmentation. The problem is, the animal self and the 'civilized' self cannot ever be fully integrated. No matter how much we appear like 'happy shiny people' on the outside, the cat is always trying to hop out of the bag and embarrass us in company.
We all have our little coping mechanisms though: Sublimation, Repression, Projection - and the way these psychic tools are activated and implemented in our everyday lives is what makes us somewhat unique.
Its a delicate balancing act this 'human being' thingy, and we're often the victim of processes we know nothing about, but we occasionally get glimpses of these ghostly machinations in our dreams and other involuntary ejaculations from the psyche.
When these processes are brought to light and spread like a diagnostic map over the lives of individuals (especially artists for example, as Freud did), the idea of a consistent, self-determined, self-aware 'Me' becomes a bit of a fiction. Its also a bit scary and liberating at the same time.
Where does this leave individual responsibility? Its a fascinating topic that I want to write more about later.
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