Identity

Identity is nothing more than what we identify with. (Compare with True North Self~Free Self. ) There is a piece of folklore even perpetuated by developmental psychologists, that we gain an identity in our teens. When you are in your 20s you are still unsure of who you are & for some this can be a lifelong process especially when we go deep. In fact what teenagers do is break away from the parents by re-attaching to another group or all sorts of paraphernalia they can identify with; which is pretty much what all the other teens are doing. So one identifies with being a teen!
I like the idea that identifying is to say ‘as if that’s me’. Your team loses and you feel bad, as if that is you. You identify with your car, perfume, song, partner, house and so on ‘as if that is you’. Well it isn’t! In fact the idea of having an identity that is you is an oxymoron. How can YOU be an identity? People express themselves by the clothes, music, tattoos and so on but this is not who they are its what they do.

Other allied terminology was invented by Jung especially the persona, or Greek for the mask. This means the sense of putting up a front or mask to cover who we are. Part of Jungian analysis was to expose the persona which would reveal the shadow or hidden self we didnt want to see. (Hidden even to ourselves.) A derivative was the commonly used term personality that is an extention of the persona. This fits nicely with our discussion of Identity above, that much of what passes for identity is in fact the persona and even the personality is likely to be a second order derivative of the persona: Viz not the real being, or true self.

And then will he fit his tongue
To dialogues of business, love or strife;
But it will not be long
Ere this be thrown aside,
And with new joy and pride
The little Actor cons another part;
Filling from time to time his “humourous stage”
With all the Persons, down to palsied Age,
That Life brings with her in her equipage;
As if his whole vocation
Were endless imitation. (From Wordsworth~Ode: Intimations of Immortality)