now part of our story, our plot is our identity…
I was homeless for a bit and that is part of my story,
part of my plot, but it isn’t part of my identity…I was
born with a hearing loss, that is part of my identity,
identity must be something that is “permanent”
I am white, that is part of my identity, part of my plot…
and it is permanent… being white tells a story… do I have or suffer
from “white privilege”? that is part of the story, whither it is true,
is another story or plot…we each of us, have a story, a plot and some
of that story is permanent which is then identity… but I have heard of
people say that “have an identity crisis”. Well if identity comes from our story
or our plot, then to have an identity crisis would imply that I have
become alienated from or disconnected from my story, my plot…
we do have forces like capitalism and communism which are forces that
are outside of or beyond our ability to control… is not part of our story, our plot
is to engage with the social forces around us… for we are social creatures and any
story we have must involve other people… we must engage with, be social with
other human beings and if we are alienated from or disconnected from people
due to the forces beyond our control…then we can feel alienated, disconnected
from people due to the forces beyond our control…alienation stems from
our disconnection to the story we have or the plot we have as human beings…
if my life is “controlled” by forces outside of my control such as in
capitalism or communism, then we are not connected to or we are disconnected
from people… if my life is determined by the “invisible hand of god” or the market,
then I am not connected to people… we are atomized by those invisible forces of
capitalism or communism or Buddhism or religion…I cannot tell a story or have a plot
about invisible forces like capitalism which the invisible forces of the marketplace
have made me poor or have destroyed my life… what is that story?
How do I turn invisible market forces into a story, a plot in which
I can maintain my identity? for identity is a permanent aspect of the story
we tell about ourselves… and those invisible forces of ism’s and ideologies,
how can I tell that story? I am not only disconnected from my fellow human
beings due to the invisible forces that dominate our lives, but I can’t even tell
a story about it which doubly disconnected me or alienates me from both my self
and my fellow human beings……
How can I tie up my story, my plot with invisible forces I can’t even see
or touch? I cannot, cannot connect my story which is what we human beings do
to help us connect us to others, remember we are social beings and we must
as an condition of being human, must connect ourselves with other human beings…
the so called identity crisis of the modern age comes from our blindly following
those invisible forces which we cannot see or touch or change and those
invisible forces are inherent in all ism’s and ideologies…for the basic
starting point of ism’s and ideologies is within invisible forces which we cannot
touch or see or connect to… socialism, communism, capitalism, Catholicism,
Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism… all exist within the starting point of invisible
forces… and science? yes, science holds us to invisible starting points like
gravity and evolution and biology… all of which have invisible forces
dominating them…how do we really solve this identity crisis?
we become connected to, part of those forces which we can see
and touch and control……….
what is the story of human beings? our social nature and we can touch
and see and feel that social nature, every single day…and that is our
starting point of our story, our plot, our connection due
to the fact that we are social creatures and we must, must in order to survive
and prosper, connect to and become part of other human beings, both
as individuals and collectively…
Kropotkin