All is not well in my mind. I am uneasy, restless, despondent, flat. I woke at 4AM and could not sleep. I feel aimless and free-falling despite the structures that surround me, including this solid house.
Yesterday, I read an article from The New Yorker, on the multitudinous self, which is at odds with the idea of the holistic self we seem to admire and aspire to. Yet we are not the same across time or within our different relationships; we are not as consistent as we imagine we should be, or perhaps we imagine we are. The essay tried to put the divisiveness of this election into context, by discussing the difference between neighbourly relationship, which are governed by decency and revolve around the particular, and politics, which is ideological and abstract; a single human being may present one way in one sphere and another, seemingly contradictory way, in another sphere (not to mention the further spheres in which the self must operate — family, job, religion, soul, etc.).
And in essence, the essay was an argument for accepting the multitudinous self rather than striving for a holistic impossibility. It pointed out that the characteristics that make a great leader in the corporate world may not make a great parent in a family; but that doesn’t mean one person can’t do both, or be both, only that we behave differently in different contexts, within our different roles. That is why politically at-odds neighbours can meet in the park and talk about their dogs. Because those are two separate spheres.
But social media challenges us, the spheres cross and so we are behaving politically in our neighbourly spaces; and that complicates and divides us in ways that make us deeply uncomfortable. The argument being, I think, that it is not a character flaw to behave differently in different situations; it is the basis for community survival.
xo, Carrie