The Self Reflection

CW: Mention of suicide

Do I have a self?

The question would certainly imply that I do.

But how can I know for sure? It seems like some deep dark secret inside of me, somewhere, carved on the innermost piece of my tibia is an answer, perhaps only a few words, that could answer. However I am not privy to such an invasive surgery so I must think for myself first. At least this tells me something about me (or my ‘self”), I don’t like an invasive question with a more invasive answer. Vulnerability smells noxious, it feels against my nature. It would fumigate everything I do to cultivate a hard internal shell.

Each memory I’ve ever made, but even more so the ones I have kept—I have the worst memory of anyone I’ve ever met, namely because in order to stop me from killing myself my brain filtered out pain, hardship, and made it hard to retain it afterwards, meaning most of my life is not remembered—make up the person I am writing about. However, does he exist alone? When she is with no one but four walls and endless posters of distraction, do they exist? I am not sure. I surround myself with reminders of who I would like to be; colorful but horrifying art is plastered across dorm room walls, posters and postcards for places I’ve been, photos of people I love and admire, works of art I value, and more are collaged together in a tapestry of interest. I wonder if they serve more as reminders than decor. If I could only prove, when I was alone, and not alone with myself, that I was real…

I watch myself when I’m alone, as if I am two people. It is subject and experimenter. It is tiger and zookeeper. It is child and father.

The behavior of the tiger cub subject is scrutinized, berated, and altered by the will of its authority, after all it knows best. Staying awake long after you’ve desired it just to make up for the hour you spent nearly crying earlier (making up a debt) is pathetic and deplorable, and yet the subject continues to do it day after day. Eventually my zookeeper does not want that. I make him change and scream until he sleeps. Each moment is like this.

Even now, the child is writing something down, something poorly constructed, rambling, and inconsequential. They were asked to reflect on if they had a “self” before going to class today and now they have turned it into something it was never supposed to be. The desire to be different, to above all else be an artist, corrupted a simple thought exercise. So I suppose I’ll have to change that behavior too.







I think that I probably do not have a self. This is because when I am alone I find I still curate behavior to an outside force, only that force is my external perception of myself. For example, if I am alone I would probably prefer to draw, play an instrument, or watch a movie, but instead I do something different than what I want and do homework. This is because I am perceiving my actions and change them. I do something similar with every person I meet, being slightly different and altering my behavior to accommodate that circumstance. This isn’t to say I am not a person or that there are not consistencies in my behavior, or even that changing what you would most desire in a given moment is being disingenuous to your personhood, but that I perceive myself internally as an amalgamation of what everyone else perceives me as (including myself) and how I act in different situations, not as a dynamic but singular self/individual. Thank you for reading.

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