Tilda Swinton in The Absent Present
Some of the students disagreed. They thought I was downplaying the elements of continuity: the fact that a human being is always the same person, that there is an underlying core of human identity that can’t be changed at a whim.
I half-agreed. There is a physiological continuity, and (usually, but not always) some continuity of memory and experience. And from a Christian philosophical perspective I’d want to talk about the spiritual unity of the person constituted by the soul. But it is striking how many of the elements that in ordinary conversation we use as markers of identity can be changed: name, job, vocation, marital status, nationality, etc. I wasn’t arguing that it is always good to reshape your present identity rather than making a renewed commitment to it, simply that it is often possible. Another word for all this is ‘conversion’.
I came across these words this afternoon from a recent interview with Tilda Swinton:
I think that the simple question of identity is probably the subject that interests me most often when looking for stories about people’s experiences. It always intrigues me that there could be any doubt about the inevitable mutability of human identity: that people encourage themselves to pick a shape of existence and stick to it, come what may, ad infinitum. It’s always occurred to me since I was very young that change is inevitable and that evolution depends upon it. I think that being resistant to one’s inexorable mutations, let alone one’s ability to live simultaneously multifaceted lines, is a serious and sad mistake. [Curzon No.19, p28]
Sartre wouldn’t agree that these mutations are ‘inexorable’, because this suggests that even the changes are in fact pre-determined.
One needs to differentiate between “identity” and “soul/self”.
I believe that one’s identity can be changed over time, whether it be lifestyle, vocation, habits or practices. However, with time I have learned that (my own) temperment/core values have remained the same, while my life has become layered with years of those identity changes that some people may think represent me, but in reality are those trappings of everyday life that have either enhanced or obscured the true self.
It is important to get back to that core, or true self, as that is the gift of God. To change, or recognize changes in your identity and to think it changes your soul is just fooling yourself.
I think this is very true. But it begs the question of the possibility of radical conversion in a human life. Yes, we are often much more defined by these core values/instincts etc than we like to admit, and we go back to them despite the superficial changes. But is there then any room for a real transformation? This feels like a kind of determinism; as if we can say ‘well, that’s just me, that’s the way I was born, that’s my genes…’
Teresa of Avila, I believe, uses the image of the door of the immermost mansion of the interior castle, i.e. the core of the person, that-of-god-in-everyone being opened from the inside only.
Where that applies the evolving of the person’s changing through life’s changes can bring about a more radical change (that door spirnging open) – and then the person is real different – and yet the same.
Now, there is a zen-like paradox for Christians.
Kind regards,
Is it not true, also, that people who undergo some form of real transformation build upon their underlying core values, experiences and practices which have shaped them into the person they were at the time of their ‘radical conversion’? I have encountered several people who, by changing their “identity” in terms of name, job/vocation, appearance etc; have sought to radically convert their “true selves” but, in reality, have found they were just trying to escape their true selves which, in it’s turn, resulted in continuing or worsening unhappiness. that is not to say, however, that I have also encountered the very occasional person who has undergone an experience or experiences which served to really transform them into the person they are today.
The moral of this whole issue, I guess is that, as Christians, we must always live in hope…