Identity (construction & deconstruction)
Some people spend their entire lives trying to find a version of themselves they lost.
Identity is complicated. We often tie identity to a sense of individualism. Children and adults are encouraged to “find themselves” and “pursue their passions.” We often think of an individual as distinct from another. But as we think of ways to define ourselves, it’s impossible not to rely on social norms.
From race to gender to politics, religion, and faith. From educational attainment to career success. And yet, there is the perennial question — what part of our identity are we born with and what part is a function of our environment, how we were raised. Which is nature vs. nurture?
It’s much harder to change what you are born with. However, in theory, we should be able to change what we are raised with. In my view, most parts of our identity are created and as a result, can be deconstructed as well.
The childhood self
In psychology, there is a concept of a “childhood” self. This self is not yet impacted by the wounds of growing up. For example, a person may have loved music as a child but learned to hate music as an adult. Alternately, a person may have danced with abandon as a child. However, as an adult, he/she stands on the sidelines due to crippling learned social anxiety.
So, who is our true self? Is it the person we were as children or the ones we grow into? While there has to be a core personality that is unique to each of us, a self that exists before any impact from the outer world, I think that self is more moldable than most of us believe.
Identity is shaped by our ego and superego
There is a concept of a “true” self in psychology by Sigmund Freud. The id is your “instinctual” or primitive self. The ego is the governing or rational self and the superego is the part of the self that manages which to chose, not dissimilar to Aristotle’s tripartite soul.
One question we might ask is then are we our id, ego, or superego? Are we our impulses or are we our rational mind? To be governed solely by our id is not feasible in society today. To judge someone civilized only by his/her instinctual impulses feels wrong. To judge someone solely by their rational side is to ignore their humanness. We have to be a sum of it all.
Identity is shaped by context
Additionally, a lot of our core identity is a function of the ecosystems we grow up in and are raised in. Identity is often tied to race, gender, and politics. Are you white, black, asian? Are you liberal, conservative? Identity can connect with socioeconomic status. How much money do you make. What house do you live in? Identity can be the country you were born in and the town you were raised in.
Identity can be intertwined with family, religion, and faith. It can be tied to prestige. What school did you go to? Where do you work? We can also tie identity to goals, roles, and hobbies. Are you a good wife? mother? brother? Further, we tie it with character traits - values and beliefs. Are you honest? kind?
Importantly, few of us have control over where we are born and who we are born to. We do not get to choose our parents. We do not get to chose our race. We often do not even get to chose our set of values. Yet, we are often defined by them. That said, the ecosystem you are born in is not an unchanging trait.
Identities evolve over time, differing by stage of life and environment
I recently watched a movie Lion that was based on a true story by a small boy in India who grew up in a poor household. As a 5 year old, he became lost and was adopted by a family in New Zealand. As an adult, he somehow finds his way back to the small town in northern India where he grew up. Yet, which was home?
When our ecosystems change, particularly from a young age, it meaningfully impacts our identity. And yet, a part of it is also defined by what we chose. Was he a poor boy from India that was adopted by an Australian couple or a wealthy kid from Australia with a broken past? Ultimately, it was what he wanted to be.
While this was a drastic example, we all go through identity changes in different phases of life.
I’ve had a few distinct phases in my life. Childhood, college student, young professional in NYC, graduate student, and well, adult. In each phase, there has been a distinct shift in how I define myself. The things I found important and the people I cared to impress were different in each phase.
Even within a certain phase, different parts of life can have different social standards. How I identified myself at home was different from how I identified myself at my job on Wall Street vs. how I identified myself in graduate business school.
New experiences can unlock new aspects of identity
My experiences in graduate business school were more similar to my junior high phase than young professional in NYC phase. Responsibilities decreased and we optimized for social popularity and getting invited to the right parties. It’s interesting how similar environments product similar results, despite a difference in age.
I’ve heard elderly care homes often become post-70s summer camps with recreational activities, group outings, and structured meals, not to mention dating and finding love.
However, at what point does social dynamic overlay any perspective or pre-identity. The Stanford Prison Experiment is an example I often find myself coming back to as a an example of social identity. In this experiment, veritably normal college kids were given roles as prisoners or guards in a “fake” prison. The experiment had to be stopped in 6 days (instead of its originally planned 14 days) given the psychological trauma of the prisoners and cruel and sadistic behavior of the guards.
How much of our so-called identity is hidden, only to be unlocked when we face certain situations or environments? Whether it’s something as simple as a new social dynamic or something as painful as starvation, pain, cruelty? Or alternately, power. How much of our individuality is truly defined by who we are rather than the environment we live in? How much of our identity is defined by the roles we fall into rather than the roles we chose? It’s tough to say until we experience it.
Identities can get shaped by childhood experiences
In therapy, there is a theory of attachment styles that has received a lot of attention. This theory says that depending on how we were raised, we develop attachment wounds that impact how we show up in our adult relationships. There are 3 types of insecure attachment wounds: anxious, avoidant, and anxious-avoidant.
Avoidants typically have trouble with intimacy as an adult given childhood experiences where a parent punished them or withheld love if they showed emotion. Alternately, an anxious will have trouble maintaining distance in adult relationships given an emotionally negligent or inconsistent parent or caregiver. Lastly, the anxious-avoidants will crave attention but withdraw when its given.
Many people live with these “wounds” for years - maybe their entire adult life - with the results playing out in traumatic and sometimes damaging and abusive relationships.
Adult experiences can leave an imprint as well
It’s not just childhood experiences that can meaningfully impact our identity. It is adult experiences as well. Women become mothers and change their priorities between career and family. People live through cancer diagnoses and realize they want a change in career.
People that have been through calamities like wars and famine develop core traits that become difficult to undo, whether it’s a constant fear of violence or overeating. War veterans and physical abuse victims alike often develop PTSD, mistaking simple things like a train horn or a hug as a form of trigger. How has covid-19 impacted each of our lives, and in particularly the generation that grew up in the environment.
Most of us have likely heard of Pavlov’s famous experiment on triggers where he trained dogs to salivate at the ring of a bell. However, what’s not as well known is that Pavlov’s dogs, after the experiment, were trapped in Pavlov’s basement in a flood. They had to escape by being submerged in water. This was a traumatizing experience for the dogs and they forgot all of their “conditioning” after the experience.
A lot of our identity is chosen or created
As we build ourselves from these multitudes of emotional and cultural complexity, it makes sense that life is seen as a “journey to find ourselves.” However, we are creating ourselves too. While we cannot change the country or religion we are born with, we can choose the cultural and religious identity we affiliate with as adults. While we cannot change how our parents raised us, we can make conscious decisions to acknowledge and counteract the negative parts of them, the ones we do not like.
While we cannot change the gifts we are given, we can chose the talents we pursue and at what cost.
I recently watched a movie, Maria, that goes through the last few days of the life of a famous Greco-Roman opera singer. On a multitude of drugs and hallucinogens, she narrates an autobiography of her life.
Her childhood where her mother forced her to sing for money. Her rise to fame and career as a world-renowned opera singer. Her exploits as the women not chosen by the man she loved. The lavish parties, the painful memories. She chose a death that mirrored the tragedy of her life. Her pain is where the music gets in, she pronounced at one point.
It’s a beautiful take on the life of a complex, sometimes narcissistic but ultimately broken women who gave her soul to the music. Her opera was both her savior as well as the setup for her demise. However, as you think about her life, how much of her tragedy was her “past” rather than the past she refused to let go, the familiar patterns, the familiar tragedy.
Identity that is created… can be deconstructed as well
There’s an idea that we should return to the version of ourselves that we were as children. Pursuing passion, love, and unconcerned with the views of others. While I think that’s beautiful, our experiences shape us to. However, we are not defined by the experiences we live through, we are instead defined by the wisdom we chose to take and learn from them.
We often have a choice at various points in our life. To disassociate with events, our past, to narrate a version of ourselves that we want to embody. Sometimes, outside events force us on a certain path. Sometimes, internal things do. Yet, what is the right mix? How much of our past do we take with us? How much do we leave behind?
I think the key here is this concept of unfinished business, undeveloped emotions. The more of your life you spend not processing the past, not accepting the events that happened to you, the more your spend your existing life and future on things that don’t feed your soul, but rather your own ego.
The more you chose activities that reflect, that try to “finish” or “resolve” rather than create. Sometimes this shows up on the surface, such as the tragedy of Maria. Sometimes this shows up in the lonely moments or emotional outbursts. Oftentimes, this shows up as toxicity.
Paths to deconstruction
Identity that is created can be deconstructed too. People take a lot of paths to pursue this deconstruction. Eat, pray, love. Therapy. In the case of Maria, multiple doses of hallucogenic drugs that nearly killed her. Parties and relationships. To find the pieces of themselves lost and undiscovered.
The depth of your initial tragedy, the length of your avoidance, often reflects the depth of the “deconstruction” needed to make sense of it. And tragedies do not stop as we get older. Our life is continuously evolving.
I think the paths that ultimately “solve” or “fix” are ones built on acceptance rather than avoidance. But it’s not clear at the start which that path could be.
Many of us have dated people that are harmful to us in order to resolve a core childhood wound of being loved, of being enough. Many of us pursue careers where we need to prove ourselves to be valued. PTSD victims are often given small doses of
Perhaps there is a truth to it all.
However, whichever path you take, the most important choice is to try. At some point, to not pursue, to make a decision to not find it at all, becomes a conscious choice to stay still.
Some people spend their entire lives trying to find a version of themselves they lost. The real tragedy is the ones that never try at all.