There are many bright, insightful people I have read, but surely one of them is Oliver Sacks. Recently, I saw a reference to his thinking about how folks get a sense of themselves---their idea of identity. The short article referenced his 1985 book, The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat. One chapter in that book deals with identity, which I find fascinating. We think we know a great deal about identity---who we are---until we begin thinking about it.
In that chapter he deals with a man who had psychological issues. We are told, “Dr. Sacks recounts the case of a patient with a memory disorder that rendered him unable to recognize not only others but himself — unable, that is, to retain the autobiographical facts which a person constellates into a selfhood.” The most interesting word in this quotation is the verb, constellates. This is a fancy word that means to group together or pull together. Essentially, it means to form or create something. Apparently, that’s what we do with our identities---we constellate!
What happened to this guy is he continually invented stories that he took for reality to determine who he was. This provokes Sacks to ponder how all of us create a sense of who we are---we create our identity. This is how Sacks moves from the sick guy to conclusions about all of us. “Such a patient,” Sacks writes of the inventive amnesiac man, “must literally make himself (and his world) up every moment.” The difference between the guy and ourselves is we don’t make this stuff up every moment. But we do make it up.
He suggests “we continually make ourselves and our world up through the stories we tell ourselves and others.” The key is story. The stories we keep in our minds are the creative key. The English Department would say it is the narrative we create that constellates our identity. It would be all of our stories that we constellate---pull together and group together. Sacks summarizes this in a one-liner: “We have, each of us, a life-story, an inner narrative — whose continuity, whose sense, is our lives.” We typically don’t make up the facts that constitute our stories. In this we are different than the sick guy. But the facts are not who we are; it is the story that makes us.
I like how Sacks elaborates this. “If we wish to know about a man, we ask “what is his story — his real, inmost story?” — for each of us is a biography, a story.” This actually makes quite a bit of sense to me. When we meet someone for the first time, we really want to hear something of his story. Tell me where you are from and what school you went to, etc. These are petitions for his or her narrative. Basically what Sacks is saying is each of us is our biography. And if I know “who” you are, that means I can tell your story.
Sacks is correct when he says our uniqueness as persons resides in our personal story. I am unique because no one else in the world has my narrative. Otherwise, we are pretty much alike, he claims. This has some interesting implications. One implication is that we are never finished. As long as we are alive, we are gaining facts and these will need to be included or not into our ongoing story of who we are. Sacks puts it this way: “To be ourselves we must have ourselves — possess, if need be re-possess, our life-stories.” I am content to say in this sense “we” evolve.
Of course, there can be a continuity to who we are. But surely I am not the same guy I was at six years old. Or maybe, in my narrative I can say I am the same guy and not the same guy. In this sense the six-year old narrative is still part of my larger narrative, but it is only one part. At six-years of age, it was the narrative.
The other major implication of this is the important fact that we can be who we want to be. This is where it can be spiritual. For example, my six-year old self may not have been religious at all. But through various experiences (which I can narrate), that earlier self began learning and accepting that God had become part of my experience---became part of my story. For some people, this is dramatic, as in a conversion experience. That is not my story. My coming to be spiritual has been more gradual, more deliberate and more of a process, rather than an event.
If folks want to know who I am, my journey in faith is an important part of my story---my self-narrative. It is so important to me that it determines how I want to think about myself and my world. It determines how I want to act and to live. The spiritual piece is central to my identity---my story about who I am.
And I am quite ok to think that I created this. This is different than saying I created God. Of course, I did not create God. But I did create how I sense God came into my life, how I have responded, what I want to do with this ongoing narrative of me. I find that interesting and a story I want to tell.
After all, that’s who I am!
In that chapter he deals with a man who had psychological issues. We are told, “Dr. Sacks recounts the case of a patient with a memory disorder that rendered him unable to recognize not only others but himself — unable, that is, to retain the autobiographical facts which a person constellates into a selfhood.” The most interesting word in this quotation is the verb, constellates. This is a fancy word that means to group together or pull together. Essentially, it means to form or create something. Apparently, that’s what we do with our identities---we constellate!
What happened to this guy is he continually invented stories that he took for reality to determine who he was. This provokes Sacks to ponder how all of us create a sense of who we are---we create our identity. This is how Sacks moves from the sick guy to conclusions about all of us. “Such a patient,” Sacks writes of the inventive amnesiac man, “must literally make himself (and his world) up every moment.” The difference between the guy and ourselves is we don’t make this stuff up every moment. But we do make it up.
He suggests “we continually make ourselves and our world up through the stories we tell ourselves and others.” The key is story. The stories we keep in our minds are the creative key. The English Department would say it is the narrative we create that constellates our identity. It would be all of our stories that we constellate---pull together and group together. Sacks summarizes this in a one-liner: “We have, each of us, a life-story, an inner narrative — whose continuity, whose sense, is our lives.” We typically don’t make up the facts that constitute our stories. In this we are different than the sick guy. But the facts are not who we are; it is the story that makes us.
I like how Sacks elaborates this. “If we wish to know about a man, we ask “what is his story — his real, inmost story?” — for each of us is a biography, a story.” This actually makes quite a bit of sense to me. When we meet someone for the first time, we really want to hear something of his story. Tell me where you are from and what school you went to, etc. These are petitions for his or her narrative. Basically what Sacks is saying is each of us is our biography. And if I know “who” you are, that means I can tell your story.
Sacks is correct when he says our uniqueness as persons resides in our personal story. I am unique because no one else in the world has my narrative. Otherwise, we are pretty much alike, he claims. This has some interesting implications. One implication is that we are never finished. As long as we are alive, we are gaining facts and these will need to be included or not into our ongoing story of who we are. Sacks puts it this way: “To be ourselves we must have ourselves — possess, if need be re-possess, our life-stories.” I am content to say in this sense “we” evolve.
Of course, there can be a continuity to who we are. But surely I am not the same guy I was at six years old. Or maybe, in my narrative I can say I am the same guy and not the same guy. In this sense the six-year old narrative is still part of my larger narrative, but it is only one part. At six-years of age, it was the narrative.
The other major implication of this is the important fact that we can be who we want to be. This is where it can be spiritual. For example, my six-year old self may not have been religious at all. But through various experiences (which I can narrate), that earlier self began learning and accepting that God had become part of my experience---became part of my story. For some people, this is dramatic, as in a conversion experience. That is not my story. My coming to be spiritual has been more gradual, more deliberate and more of a process, rather than an event.
If folks want to know who I am, my journey in faith is an important part of my story---my self-narrative. It is so important to me that it determines how I want to think about myself and my world. It determines how I want to act and to live. The spiritual piece is central to my identity---my story about who I am.
And I am quite ok to think that I created this. This is different than saying I created God. Of course, I did not create God. But I did create how I sense God came into my life, how I have responded, what I want to do with this ongoing narrative of me. I find that interesting and a story I want to tell.
After all, that’s who I am!
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