Writings on Identity

Identity 

I'm convinced that identity plays a crucial role in many, if not all problems in society, such as mental health, polarization, religion, politics, racism, and even war. Identity influences how people relate to themselves, life, and each other.

In my own words, I call identity an image born from the pain of the forgotten self. This happens to us because in life we sometimes encounter even profound moments where our ego (some call this "thinking") has taken over to withstand the pain of the moment. Identity is not simply a self-image, but essentially an imagined or imaginary self-image. This self-image is not who or what we are (the forgotten self), but who or how we strive to be, to live, or even to survive, as an echo of our environment through which this self-image is nourished and developed.

Because we connect with this imaginary identity with our full attention, we lose touch with ourselves. All our attention increasingly shifts to thinking and away from our unique identity and feelings. We become the voice in our head. Sometimes this is a natural and healthy temporary survival response, but if it persists, it disrupts our natural personhood. Because this connection fades into the background, the true connection between people also disappears, and many often feel like strangers on a planet where they don't seem to belong. This identity could also be called a mask, a mask that emerges when we get out of bed and go about our daily lives, sometimes revealing only that mask. But it's more than just a mask.

It is the mind (others call this the ego) that imagines a self and tries to be something or someone, thus forming an imagined identity that may or may not conform to the environment and that can and wants to survive its surroundings. Anything else that challenges that identity is potentially even seen and experienced as hostile to that image. This identity can be seen as a mask.

A person is not his identity

A person is not his identity. This only forms later and merges with the experience of "I." A person is not who and how they try to be, which is in every way an echo of their environment.

The shape of Identity

So what does identity consist of? Identity is formed during our development; it's an accumulation of culture, religion, beliefs, knowledge about ourselves and the world, and events that shape our ego in positive and negative ways, thus determining how we think about ourselves and the world.

Identity develops as people progress through life, for example, through their profession or hobby. The resulting possessions also contribute to this, such as the house they live in or the car they drive, contributing to what's known as their image, often wrapped in a narrative we call our life.

Clothing, for example, is a way for people to express their unique or group identity. In the small circle close to us, family and relatives contribute to our identity; later, school and culture are added. Our identity is shaped not only by external influences but also by our personal values, beliefs, and intrinsic characteristics embedded in our character.

Another part of this identity is formed by confrontations with our primary emotions, which give rise to many secondary social emotions. A playing field in which people appease or reject each other with the socially cultivated tools of guilt and shame.

There's a famous saying that the finger pointing at the moon isn't the moon. The same is true for all facets of our autobiographical identity; it's a description, but it's not who we are.

Identity and racism

How does identity relate to, for example, racism? If identity is nurtured and shaped by our environment, then race, religion, politics, or culture are all part of it. The people of Israel, for example, have one of the most fundamental identities: race, religion, and a story about origins and land. In many identities, these foundations are much less solid, present, or extensive than in the Jewish one.

Because I see identity as an imagined self, an idea, less fundamental identities can be less true, real, or different. One self-imagination doubts itself in light of another, which can even make the other image hostile to one's own. This hostility can arise, among other things, from the clash of differences in culture, behavior, and the workings of unconscious beliefs from one's own culture.

If we were who we are, the forgotten or original self, then none of this would matter because we would be who and what we are, a whole person connected to other people.

Knowledge

Identity and knowledge, including in the form of experiences, are connected, as our identity is partly shaped by what we know and understand. 

Knowledge influences how we see ourselves and how we relate to others and the world around us. It is through acquiring knowledge that we can develop, refine, and even strengthen our self-image and identity, and whether or not we give our ego or identity an imaginary value.

Learning from the past

Can people learn from the past? As I see it, that's impossible. The past is a story often lacking the context of the ego or thinking, which causes what happens and why. That nothing is learned from it is reflected in the repetition of the horrors that humanity suffers time and again. The reason behind this is that our actions are not based on clear logic or pure reason, but are fundamentally guided by the ego.

The only real lesson to be learned is to be mindfully aware, feeling, of why and what you do as you would like, and which conditioned beliefs are part of that. Often, we are driven by and out of ourselves, by the shape of our innate character, but at other times, our ego or thinking is the driving force, and then the voice of the conditioned past resonates in how we act in this moment and thus repeat ourselves.

Victimhood

Identity is strongly linked to victimhood. Our identity consists of a story about what our "I" is, and what has happened to us in the form of narrative thinking (whether unwanted or not, as with trauma).

When one begins to explore this, one may become aware that there is more suffering from the story than the actual physical or emotional damage suffered, if any damage exists at all.

If anyone wants to dismantle this victimhood or victim identity, Byron Katie's four-question method is a good starting point. Simply reading the book "Four Questions That Will Change Your Life" and working on our own story can foster gentleness toward ourselves and others, and freedom from this part of our identity can arise.

It's a powerful insight that there's suffering in one's own story and interpretation of a past situation, rather than someone else causing it and being to blame for the suffering. It can offer immense power for healing when the part of yourself involved in the situation can then be healed yourself.

Identity and politics

Identity and politics are closely intertwined, as our identity is often influenced and shaped by political and social beliefs and events. It's fascinating to explore how our personal identity is shaped by or around the political environment we live in and how this, in turn, influences our political views and choices.

By delving deeper into this connection, we can gain a better understanding of the complex relationship between identity and politics and how they mutually influence each other. Politics, at its core, has a polarity divided between a left and a right spectrum, but these are two sides of the same coin and an externalization of our inner split between heart and head.

Where left-wing activism tries to resolve the inner fears and beliefs behind its own mask by adapting the world to it, right-wing activism does everything it can to keep the sometimes harsh and protective mask upright.

Identity and gender

Identity also plays a significant role in gender. Culture, religion, and sometimes science have defined a clear male/female identity that must be consciously or unconsciously adhered to. The reality is completely different, and 99.9% of the assigned characteristics, aside from those physically intended for reproduction, are not found in our DNA, as science now confirms. Although hormones influence this character, men and women fundamentally share a similar psychology in the form of a socially cultivated and socialized way of thinking, and thus identity.

In situations like gender dysphoria, these cultivated traits and formations play a role in the background. This leads to unconscious or unconscious identification with the culturally defined masculine or feminine, and instead of accepting who we are, we sometimes want to present that masculine or feminine image to conform to the image society expects us to have. If someone wants to do this, that's perfectly fine, but realize that it's a refusal to accept who or what we truly are: a human being with characteristics that are rightly or wrongly attributed to a polarized view of humanity.

Identity and time

With identity or "I" also comes the experience of time, after all, identity consists of thinking, and thinking takes time. Our experience of time depends, among other things, on this thinking. For example, if one is traveling to a distant destination and one's attention is focused on this horizon, time seems long, and our time with a loved one or in company sometimes seems to be outside of time. It's no wonder that when we are healthy and well, four to eight hours of sleep, time is not experienced; with a bit of luck, our thinking is at rest.

In doing so, I argue that as long as no one indicates how long it takes for the future to change into the past, time does not exist.

Identity and the need for less 

Thinking fulfills desire, but at the same time, it is emptiness. Thinking, and with it identity, comes and goes and will always require a new and ever-increasing desire for better, faster, and more beautiful self-affirmation. The reverse movement toward less or smaller is precisely the same movement to maintain identity or image and to distinguish oneself from the "other" side.

Awareness

Becoming aware of our identity can simultaneously help us become aware of who or what we truly are. By self-examining the workings of the ego's mechanisms and attentively observing and sensing the "concepts" surrounding identity, answers can emerge, and we can gradually say goodbye to the authenticity of our identity.

Identity doesn't have to go away; it's the realization that it's a kind of work in progress during our daily lives, only lighter and without the constant influence of the ego on who and what we truly are. Identity then becomes something consciously chosen in the moment, if necessary, while simultaneously remaining fully in control of life as ourselves.

I wrote earlier that anything can become hostile to our imagined identity or way of thinking. For those who want to connect with themselves, it's important to learn to see that enemy image consciously and mindfully, and to turn it into a challenge to discover who or what you are not, and to break with old, learned habits and beliefs that will become increasingly less true. Sometimes simply being aware of it is enough, and it will leave your system; other times, it can be hard work to break with something you know no longer belongs to you. Dare to see confrontations as a mirror or echo of the identity-based thinking of yourself and your environment.

While everyone can embark on this journey of discovery entirely on their own, you can involve the world as you see fit. Visit a psychologist or psychotherapist, do a family constellation, or read a good book based on your intuition. If done with the sincere intention of becoming aware and discovering yourself, it will help you find the answers.

Identity and our emotions

Guilt and shame are two of the secondary core emotions that play a major role in shaping our identity. We aren't born with feelings of guilt and shame; these social conflict emotions emerge later, when the ego begins to form and the first conflicts with our environment occur, and the mechanisms behind guilt and shame are transmitted or even harshly imposed.

Our identity is thus partly a consequence of the conflicts arising from the created social guilt and shame conflicts that can even divide us internally and lead to the idea that who we are or what we do is bad, a mechanism with which an immature humanity dominates each other.

One way out of this is to dare to feel guilt and shame and to examine whether the beliefs behind these emotions are true for yourself.

Identity and motivations

It becomes more difficult to discover who you are when human and therefore inner drives are interwoven with the external world, the everyday story in which we live and give ourselves shape or a story.

Caring is one such inner human drive, but when it becomes connected to an outer purpose, that which is cared for, and this gives shape and/or content to who we think or try to be, it reinforces the formation or strengthening of our identity.

A mature and possibly caring person is only responsible for how he does something, not for what he does (within the limits of reason), the latter strengthens the appearance of identity and is binding, the former is our essential nature and free.

Identity and truth

An attempt at depth. As the realization and awareness grows that identity is a form of objectification of ourselves, and logically, as a consequence, everything in our environment, then an insight can emerge that identity is something that seems real, but that at the same time, it doesn't have to be true.

For example, when new life is born, the first objectification is the word "baby," and on top of that, a layer bearing the baby's name. All our experiences with the new life together form an imaginary sum and a thought-projected identity of the newborn child. Increasingly, we will look at the (imagined) image of the new life, instead of consciously seeing life as it is. This will sooner or later lead to experiential conflicts when the image doesn't match the experience, and the first frictions within and between both parties will come to fruition.

In fact, it can be said that the reality of our image, the mirage, covers the truth of the (new) life and the truth ultimately disappears from view.

Identity and truth are intimately connected, as the process of awareness and self-discovery can lead us to the core of who we truly are. By exploring our identity, we can strive for a deeper understanding of the truth about ourselves and our connection to the world around us. Awareness of our identity can help us be more authentic and live in alignment with an inner truth.

God

God is no one; most people personify God, because they've done the same with themselves. That God and that person are a mirage created by thought.

Thousands of gurus and coaches are doing nothing more than attempting to give form to something that will inherently and always prove to be empty. Our nature knows no fixed form.

Generative AI

Generative AI is based on learning texts that can be thousands of years old in an advanced digital form. This includes history, science, sociology, psychology, literature, general reading, news, magazines, and religion. It's a digitized expression of thousands of years of human thought, and thus also the workings of psychological dynamics within our thinking.

How generative AI "thinks" closely resembles the mechanisms of our own learned thinking, including hallucinations and slips of the tongue. It can even "lie" because, like humans, it's focused on providing answers. The better it gets, the more real or human-like the machine appears to us. Sometimes a conversation can be experienced as deeply personal due to the responses to the questions asked, especially if the agent is allowed to remember the conversations and they are of a personal nature.

Is the substantive meaning people give to words and thus to the world, and thus experience their world, an age-old figurative conditioning of a dream projected by our brains, or is it a truth and our only reality? What does the use of AI reveal about our own reality and identity?

Can reality and identity even be captured in words?

Furthermore, generative AI currently runs on systems that are fundamentally binary and operate with a state that is either 1 or 0. Our brains, in their unconditioned state, possess an infinite number of quantum variations. Something to consider when we try to think outside the box.

A world where this vision is embraced

In a world where we view identity as a complex interplay of internal and external factors, a profound understanding of who we truly are can emerge. People embrace their unique characteristics and recognize the diversity and evolution of identity as a dynamic concept.

Society is deeply imbued with a realization that identity is not only individual but also strongly influenced by social and cultural contexts. People understand that their interactions with others and the broader society play a crucial role in shaping who they are. Letting go of limiting notions of identity is no longer just a personal journey, but also a collective effort to reshape social structures.

This holistic approach places a greater emphasis on critically analyzing societal norms and values that influence identity. People strive to break through deeply ingrained assumptions and create space for a more inclusive and diverse society. There is a growing awareness that understanding identity cannot be separated from broader social dynamics and that there is a shared responsibility to create an environment where everyone can express themselves authentically.

In this world, empathy, understanding, and acceptance flourish. People embrace each other's differences and celebrate the unique contributions each individual makes to the fabric of society. Identity is no longer seen as a static entity, but as an ongoing journey of discovery enriched by interactions with others and the world around us. It is a world where diversity is celebrated and where everyone has the freedom to be fully themselves.