Today at lunch with a few good friends and a fraternity brother, we took up the question of identity. Do we or don't we have a personal, enduring self? Or are we, as Hume claimed, a mere bundle of sensations? Even my model philosophers, De Beauvoir and Sartre, insisted that we are always free to choose what we become, choose what our essence is, because our existence comes first.
I guess I haven't thought of it in this light, in the light of a basement bar in a New Orleans like restaurant serving Po-boys and Muffulettas. But yes, at some point, I do think we create a sustainable and enduring self, informed by our choices. My father, when I asked, told me he thinks of himself as a good citizen. That was his understanding of who he was. My self cannot be anything other than a Philosopher. Thinking about what it means to be alive, what it means to be ethical, what it means to be fully alive, such are the questions I ask. The answer may take on different variations, but the essence is the same.
Who we are is also deeply built upon who we choose to love. For me love is a relationship of intimacy that lasts for any amount of time from 6 months to a lifetime, that changes how we think of ourselves, takes away and adds to our overall personality. Takes something away from our prior self, yet adds to who we are as well.
13 relationships in my long 75 years of life I count as love, as defining, romantic relationships. Five are with women, eight with men; though the distinction of male and female may well need some elaboration these days. Each relationship was mutually progressive, adding to our understanding of ourselves and of the other. None of my relationships was ever defined by monogamy; a fairly impossible thing for someone who is bisexual and feels the attraction and the revelations from both sides. Were I a great novelist, there would be 13 works of literature covering each relationship. All thirteen relationships are ever in my thoughts.
There are also the things that are not my person. I am not a Christian. I am not a capitalist. I see both outlooks to be closer to evil than to anything good or constructive. Emperor Constantine saw the ways in which Christianity could be manipulated to promote conformity and loyalty to the crown. How modern Christians can ignore the horrors of the church, burning people alive who did not conform, is beyond my understanding. The evils of consumer based capitalism with its harm to people, the environment, and the sanctity of life itself are so overwhelming. If I have religious feelings, call them Pantheism, love of Nature, with a hint of Buddhist compassion.
But here I am, an alien to my many friends' religion, an alien to their political views or lack thereof, an alien to their disregard for the environment and what horrors we are doing to the planet, an alien to their simple hedonism which omits art and music for drink and travel. Well, I've done the latter in part, though I can not imagine a life without music or art and never tire of experiencing new art, new revelations about existing art, or new music.
Philosophy does not provide final answers; it provides ongoing questions, about life, about value, about existence. Philosophy is a great joy to me, as great a joy as beautiful new music heard for the first time, as great a joy as the first experience of sex with a loved one, female and male. Let me put it another way:
Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death-- enduring words of Auntie Mame.
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