– George Bernard Shaw
You wake up, and you have no memories of who you are. You’re the same person, but you lack all the skills you’ve learned throughout your life. Somehow, you can still talk and have a personality and the same intelligence. It’s the personality that is the core of you. Where does that personality come from?
Who Are We?
Even the most independent thinkers got their ideas from somewhere. They’re synthetically derived from the existing world. Some are more synthetic or, as we now call it, “basic” than others. The most basic are the NPCs (non-playing characters). We’re memetic in nature, so the things we do, enjoy, and strive for come from other people.
If you grew up in a family playing tennis, your siblings all played tennis, your parents, and then your entire peer group, you too will play tennis. Tennis becomes your life. Do you actually like tennis, or is it that you gain validation from your friends and family by playing tennis well? Likely the latter, but if you do something enough that’s who you become.
Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry.
—Oscar Wilde
If a version of ourselves pretends something for long enough, it becomes who we are. It’s almost as if we’re pre-destined to have a certain personality and character. Whether we’re kind or not to others comes from our friends and family. It’s also a choice.
This can lead to extreme transformations. I love this excerpt from Ender’s Game:
He used to torture squirrels, and then he decided he wouldn’t do that anymore, and he started pretending to be kind, just so he could be a better politician. But Valentine, it wasn’t a mask, it was real. He used to hate it when I told him he was pretending to be kind, but it was true. He was pretending. But the mask was too good. The lies were too true. And when he walked around in his kindness-mask, he found that he liked the way people responded to it. And when he wanted something, the kindness helped him get it, so it became real. Not pretending anymore. He is kind.
I rather have people gaslight themselves into being kind than the opposite.
Severed Self
What does the severed version of you want? What would they desire? Maybe it’s your enneagram as that’s your natural state. Or maybe you gaslit yourself into being your enneagram. That’s where things get weird.
Identity is a construct—a mosaic of external imprints and deliberate choices. When you strip away the layers of environmental personality, you confront your unique canvas. Without the baggage of past conditioning, you’re left to paint.
Take Alex, for example. Waking up with no memories, Alex realizes every habit and inclination is a product of environmental conditioning. With no past to anchor Alex, he rebuilds his identity from the ground up. This isn’t a denial of history; Alex has no history. Yes, there’s a history of past Alex, but that isn’t current Alex. He recognizes that identity is fluid and malleable—shaped by conscious decisions rather than predetermined fate.
Through this process, Alex discovers that identity is less about predetermined traits and more about active creation. Every decision becomes a statement about who Alex is, free from the ghosts of a past self. This redefinition emphasizes that meaning is self-forged; similar to free will, it emerges only when we consciously choose to redefine ourselves in each moment.
But that sounds exhausting. I’m glad I know who I am. My severed self would be equally weird.