Personality is Arbitrary
A long time ago I was singing in the chorus of an opera. It was our last performance of Verdi’s La Traviata, and I was playing the part of a drunken reveler. To get into character, my colleagues and I got very intoxicated before the show. I had more ambition, so I was far more gone than the rest of them.
We finished the first act and were settling in to wait out the second (we spent all of it offstage). Spirits were high in the waiting room and there was a great deal of energy and laughter everywhere.
I sat in a chair at the edge of the room, watching the more energetic choristers rollicking around in the center. They were all still wearing their costumes and their makeup looked overdone and exaggerated under normal lighting.
I looked at them and noticed something: even though they were offstage, every single person was still playing a character. The makeup and the mood of the of the night exaggerated it, but it left a distinct impression on me that these people, however conscious of it or not, was acting out a role.
It got me thinking: how much of this is true of all of us every day? What parts of ourselves are a character we take on, and what parts of us are really “us,” unchanging and constant?
I’ve been thinking about this ever since that night, and I’ve come to the conclusion that most of who we think we are is arbitrary. The “us” we cling to is just a character.
We are not our job titles, though people try so hard tell us that we are. We are not our accents and our origins, these occurred through chance and events outside of our control. Who “we” are is our interpretation of our memories, which are fragmented, biased, and rife with chaotic emotion.
There is very little holding together who we think we are each and every day. It’s only the story that we keep internally telling ourselves that defines who “we” are.
Instead of this being a bad thing, it can be a wonderful opportunity. We can be whoever we want to be. Why not be the people we read about in stories? Why not be the people we dream about becoming?
As someone whose name I have long since forgotten once said:
“don’t be lonesome for your heroes. Be your own heroes.”
From this perspective, we have complete control of who we are and who we become. We have nothing to lose if the “people” we have been clinging to never really existed in the first place. Personality is arbitrary, so why not make ourselves into the people we’ve always wanted to be?
Have you ever read any articles about how language can affect your thinking patterns and personality? For instance in Spanish you don’t say someone broke the vase, you say the vase broke itself — leading English speakers to feel slightly more guilt since we say who broke the vase. There’s also stuff about saving money linked to your use of future tense in your native language; and which language bilingual people feel more confidence when they use. Super interesting in my opinion.
It’s very true. We often don’t realize the constructs of our own thinking until we look at another person or culture’s way of viewing the world.