I read The Post-Individual essay yesterday; written by the writer and entrepreneur Yancey Strickler -today behind Metalabel, before that behind Kickstarter. I highly recommend it. It goes back in history and the creation of the individualism. Here are the first 3 paragraphs:
On the internet we can be whoever we want to be. We can choose from any number of qualities, real or imagined, and express ourselves and live our lives from that point of view online.To go online is to become re-individualized — an individual in a whole new way and place. You still exist in the physical world, but you gain a new social existence that floats over-top of, around, inside of, and as a force within almost all other areas of life.
Because of the internet we don’t need to define our identity based on where we physically live, who we’re born to, or what we look like, as has been the case in human history until now.
A few thoughts came to mind while reading the whole thing. First, that we have to learn to see ourself as an individual, this isn't 'natural' and we can observe this process with very young kids. Which reminds me the story of a friend: one day his daughter -around 2 year-old- came back from school and was happy to report all the friends she was in love with. While with her mother that evening, she was saying out loud "you know mum, I love Marius, I also love Leah, and I love Aline" etc. After a few minutes, her mum asked: "and what about yourself? do you love yourself?". The daughter looked at her suspiciously and answered: "of course noooo, otherwise there would be 2 Julia.". I love this instinctive raw reaction. Which also puts into perspective this point from the post-individual article:
As K-Hole put it in 2014’s “Youth Mode”:“Once upon a time people were born into communities and had to find their individuality. Today people are born individuals and have to find their communities.”
We might not be born individual per se. No doubt society teaches us to become one very rapidly.
Seeing this graph above -from Ben, in an essay on how the internet had shaped his identity- made me think of a piece I wrote a little while ago called Me, myself and... my other self. I approached this post-individual reality -without naming it though- through our closet and a few habits -particularly social, like our diet- during our lockdown-while-extremely-online era. Since that post, I added a few hats on my head, like a father -times 2- and a few others. This question still resonates deeply:
Which kev do I wanna play here right now exactly?
A final thought came through our language angle. I highly recommend this amazing talk; a must-listen seriously; which also acts as the perfect ode to learn new languages -always a bonus. Lera asks questions like: why is time travelling around us (how egocentric!)? How agentive are we? Spanish is non agentive: 'se rompio el florero' vs English is the opposite: 'Sam broke the vase'.