The Complexity of the Self

 

Originally Written: 4/12/2016

Is it possible that a lot of the mental health problems seen today are a result of the increasing complexity of the self? To make it clearer, do people feel or become less in touch with themselves simply because psychology and the culture of self-help has made the self harder to be in touch with by adding a gross amount of unnecessary complexity? Think about it, if simplifying problems make them easier to solve, then simplifying oneself should make it easier to fix oneself. It should support both the point of the blissful idiot who knows nothing and the sage who has devoted his life to a single frame of thought and self-characterization.

2021 Additions:

It seems that I was on to something back then when I first started journaling. I think this random thought finds more support as we continue in the American narrative. For example, we can easily understand that at least 2 major points of the self used to be given the moment someone was born. The first was race. I remember clearly that all my life growing up, I was Hispanic, and I never doubted that and my paperwork supported that, and I spoke the language of the Hispanic people. In 2010, I remember every Hispanic student being pulled out their class and stuffed into the principle’s office. We were told that there would be changes to the 2010 census that removed the option “Hispanic” from race. Needless to say, we were confused at this because it seemed to go against what we all knew was given at birth. We were born of Spanish speaking parents and spoke a different language at home. However, we were asked to identify as another race, and then identify as “of Hispanic origins.” From this point forward we were all asked to start thinking about an aspect of ourselves that was never up for debate, it wasn’t a variable, it was definite value. It added undue complexity.

And that’s just for Hispanics like me, and what about the increasing share of people who find themselves as mixed race children? More recently, ancestry and genetic testing add even more variability to this equation with the addition of percentages and an increasing list of countries of ancestry that someone discovers about themselves.

Then came gender, and I was lucky to never be a part of this, but I’ve had the unfortunate experience of witnessing it. What we all used to also assume as a given in our lives was whether we were a man or woman. As of the last decade, this given has also been eroded and left yet another undue variable that many of the youth are being asked to think and consider as they grow.

To leave the basic elements of the person up for debate and on a shaky foundation leads to a higher complexity as the variables that previously did not exist are left to be solved by the individual. Ask anybody with mental health issues how they feel, and they will tell you that their mind is constantly thinking and running. They were likely in that mind state long before the mental illness appeared because they were thinking about givens in life as variables causing the mental illness.