This has probably happened to you: you look at your photo and categorically do not recognize yourself. It’s not me! I just can’t be! — And in response you hear: “No, it’s you …” Is our idea of ourselves so far from reality?
You must have had such a strange story. A friend shows you a photo and you don’t recognize yourself. No (heavy) body, no (clumsy) posture, no (aged) face. Bad shot, very bad! You even want to break it — this terrible double. You are embarrassed, but, realizing the importance of this challenge to your personality, you exclaim: «It’s not me!» And since you, the sole owner of the rights to yourself, say this, in theory you should be believed. But alas, this is where the unimaginable happens — your friend replies: “No, it’s you, it’s exactly you!”
So, some photo knows better than me what I am? And who am I after that? Here you plunge into reflections on the vague secrets of personality. For the experience you are now experiencing goes beyond the so-called «mirror test» when our ideal self (slender, vigorous and elegant in our imagination) suddenly comes face to face with reality. No, you get much more.
It opens up to you that self-identity is not something immutable, that it is an eternal movement, eternal negotiations. With others who have an opinion about you that confirms or refutes your self-esteem. And most importantly, with yourself. Or, more precisely, with the many «I» that live in each of us. Because every time we rethink ourselves, and at different times this meaning is different. Sometimes, under the spell of a book, a movie, our own fantasy, we identify ourselves with fictional characters: I am James Bond, or I am Monica Bellucci. Or, more accurately, I am me who has become him or her.
Our identity to ourselves does not change — it is an eternal movement, eternal negotiations.
But then reality catches up with me: the car has a flat tire. Who would have thought — a jack of all trades wakes up in me (I can change a wheel!). At this moment, for me there is nothing more important than this image of me — the master of the jack and nuts. I get behind the wheel again, put on my favorite music — songs that are sung where I was born. James Bond and the auto repair genius are instantly forgotten: I just feel like I’m part of a community of kind-hearted, sincere people.
This is how what is called multiple belonging operates today: our belonging to this or that community has ceased to be natural and unchanging. Now «membership» types are activated depending on the context, dreams or needs. Identification with a nation (often mentioned in the news) is actually very rare. Here are friends, a sports club and countless other groups. Nationality cannot be set once and for all (otherwise we would be mistaken for a century), because it is just a constantly changing sum of individual moments when everyone feels like a part of the country and nation in their own way.
By the way, I want to console you about the photo: your friend does not own the truth about you. Yes, of course, he sees your wrinkles and pounds better than you do. But he doesn’t know anything about the shadow that crossed your face. Only you hold the key to meaning. And this is precisely the essence of personality today.