The many to one relationship of identity
Published on Sunday, 22. August 2021I don't have a single identity. I have many. To use the terminology from object oriented programming, it's the difference between an "is a" and a "has a" relationship. Most cars have a radio, which gives them the ability to play music. But if cars had a sense of self, they surely wouldn't identify as a radio.
In a similar fashion, I have many identities to choose from:
One is a software developer
One wants to write short stories
One wants to be an entrepreneur
One wants to learn about maths and theoretical physics
One is a musician
One wishes that the drive of the other identities goes away so that he can enjoy wasting time on YouTube
One wants to own nothing but a backpack and travel the world
One wants to built a house with lots of secret passages and an enormous library
One wants to learn about procedural generation and computer graphics (but hates game design)
One who forgets that he actually hates game design and romanticises game development
One is an anarchist. He probably doesn't know what he's advocating for
One who believes that anarchism is critically flawed. He doesn't understand anarchism either
One who wants to learn just about anything for a few days before choosing something else to do
These are just a few that come to mind. I don't know where they come from. I know that they mostly don't care for each other, and that none of them sees the full picture. But they all think that if I give them my full attention, I'll be truly happy. I know that this isn't true.
I have no control over what they believe in and what they want to do. All I can do is choose how much attention I want to give each of them. But my attention is limited. So I can't satisfy all of them.