When best-selling author Robert Greene suffered a stroke, his comprehension of consciousness and sense of self changed.

He experienced the Self not as a cohesive whole,

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but as a series of multiple, competing selves.

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The philosopher Rene Girard might see this experience as becoming aware of the presence of one's mimetic models, those whom we copy and imitate, those who we seek to become, comprising our sense of who we are.

And how those models compete in a hierarchy for our sense of Self.

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The original hypnotists understood this phenomenon, and referred to it as “polypsychism”.

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British parapsychologist GNM Tyrell wrote in the 1940s:

“The personality is a multiplicity in unity of a kind which is almost impossible to express in words.”

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“The lesson is surely that identity of selfhood is not dependent on numerical separateness in the way that we habitually think it is.

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Selfhood has not the kind of unity which we associate with numerical separateness..”

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John Mayer has a similar perception of the formation of musical style:

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"We sound like 'ourselves' when we fail to sound like the people we imitate."

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Playing Style emerges from the failure to attain precise imitation.

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A mixture of styles, Hendrix, Stevie Ray, Van Halen, and failing to sound like all 3 you might end up "sounding like yourself".

But it's really a mixture of influences, and the failure to sound like any one in particular.

Yet from this soup a sense of a unified whole emerges.

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We seem to use this same method in life, carving out a sense of Self by sourcing desires from a litany of individuals, past and present.

We fail to imitate any one model perfectly, but with enough influences, we compile a unified whole sense of Self from this series of sources, generate a cohesive sense of identity, and a unified narrative for our lives comprised of metaphysical desire based off mimetic models.

We may be pursing,

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-a lifestyle copied from one person

-a philosophical outlook copied from another

-a work ambition copied from yet another

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We wont be able to imitate all 3 models to perfection (and those who do attain a close semblance of imitation come off as uncanny) but we might arrive at a unique arrangement through a specific combination of factors and the failure to imitate any one factor precisely.

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In Meditations, Aurelius starts out by listing lessons he's learned from various people in his life.

This can be a powerful exercise for discovering the sources of our desires and sense of Self.

Going back over one's life and reflecting and potentially discovering people from our lives who we have taken on as models, and have been imitating.

By making the "lessons we learned" from them conscious, we may be able to create enough space to see potential mimetic modeling.

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We can discard desires and ideas of Self if we see any lack of cohesion among the various influences.

Like Spring cleaning, for our sense of Self.

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That's it for today.

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Phillip
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