My Reflection
On the troubles of personal identity
I stand in front of the mirror and am greeted by millions of other people. Each a version of myself. A replica. A match. A stranger. They stand before me, staring into my hollow eyes. I wonder if I am really them, if they are really me. Personal identity is complex, when am I me and why? Where would I be without my multiple selves, my different versions. The more I look at the reflection in front of me, the more uncertain my identity becomes. I see the versions as themselves, no longer attached to me, no longer attached to the I. They are separate. They each stand on their own, a whole person. My identity is made up from these multiples, I am a culmination of versions.
In personal identity theory, philosophers postulate the I. We question our understanding of self until the self no longer exists. My mind, my body, my soul. Which one is me? Is there a me? The more I look at myself in the mirror, the deeper I fall into the reflection staring back. I see beyond the ordinary. I see the nakedness, the vulnerability and I am met with the fear of unknowing. The terror of the self and of understanding who I am. The reflection is constantly changing. There is no one me, no final form, the same river is never stepped in twice, change is forever happening.
Each minute, each second, each breath I am different and another one of me gets trapped in the reflection. The mirror becomes like a fun house. The versions are distorted. They form together and split apart, they stretch and collapse into one another. The we becomes the I and transforms back again. We are all the same, I am the same, and yet different possibilities exist beyond the reflection. There is nothing distinctly unique about me, about the I. Inside the mirror I become lost, floating in the dark abyss alongside my multiples, my replicas, my versions, my many I’s. I am but a mere moment in time.
Personal identity theory has led me to question the ways in which we define and become ourselves. What does being a person consist of? What does it mean to be the same? The question of personal identity is meant to determine the necessary and sufficient conditions under which a person at one time and a person at another time can be said to be the same person, persisting through time. But this question is complex, because there are many different ways to measure identity over time and that leads to even more dilemmas regarding the self. The trouble of defining and understanding the self leads us to the question: who am I? Who is the I? I’m not so sure we can ever definitively say or define identity in one strict way, it is fluid and changing, and like a reflection in the mirror stares back at you desperately wanting and needing an answer to survive.