Narratives of the self

Are they useful? Are they not?

I often find myself thinking about the narrative I tell myself, at a local and global level. I’m glowcute, trying to figure things out in the world. I’ve accomplished and failed at various things. There are things I really like and dislike. I’m excited about some things, envious of other things, anxious about a different set of things. I try things.

These are partly true because my brain is structured this way / with sufficient interactions with the environment, these seem to be the outcomes. But partially it’s because I’m narrating myself a story of who I am, what my goals are, what I struggle with, and what I’m excited about, who I maybe *should* be or try to become. This might be a story I’ve been telling myself for so long it became internalized. Or maybe it’s a hodgepodge of other people’s stories (in books, videos, media, or in conversation with my fellow humans) I’ve found alluring or true that I want to apply to myself. Or both.

But is this useful? I subscribe to trying to think of myself as a homunculus occasionally, to remove myself from my past and just look at my current state and the world with fresh eyes. If only to at least remove myself from previous emotional baggage and to try to face things as is. This tends to work, but I usually apply it locally, like when I make a bet and lose, or things don’t go my way, or when they *do* go my way but I want to prevent it from getting to my head. Even then, though, I think I rarely do it globally: imagining that I’ve fully let go of any previous sense of self, any past that I ever had, and fully just observing things from a meta-perspective of “Whoa I’ve just plopped into the world from nothingness. Hmm, I seem to have these thoughts roaming about my head. Oh, I guess this body likes doing this and this sometimes. Let’s stop doing these things, let’s start doing those things etc.”

A full reset. When I do try to actually do it, it feels odd. Like the human got overwritten. But the narrations come back. They’re comforting, they ring true to some degree, and hey continuation of self right? This seems to be an important part of well-being? It’s good to feel pride about temporary specific accomplishments of one’s past (authentic pride), as long as it’s not about you trying to be prideful about an alleged permanent aspect of yourself or personality (hubristic pride)? What about guilt? Is that really ever useful?

I guess every emotion has its dysfunctional form. To the point that sometimes I wish a specific emotion could never be felt, due to experiencing its dysfunctional form when I’m feeling down.

On the “full reset homunculus” thing, the closest I’ve ever come to truly experienced this was back in middle school when the chest-compression meme was going around. I remember putting myself by the wall, breathing in, and as I was breathing in, my friend compressing my chest.

Full darkness.

I was in this pure void. All my memories just gone. But I didn’t know that. I knew literally nothing, apart from a vague sense of language. It felt like I was in this space/vacuum thing, darker than dark, completely blank slate. “Why am I here?” I asked myself, floating. Nothingness, no response. “Huh I can speak? What is this?”. I continued floating.

“I think I was in something called a classroom?” Continued floating. “I think I have a family? Somewhere? What’s that?” and then slowly, but exponentially the memories flood back. Where I live, who my friends are, my house, school, city, country, world, myself. Bum. Bum. Bum bum bum bumbumbumbumbrrrrrrrrrrrt.

I opened my eyes and I’m looking at the floor, hunched down. I asked what the fuck happened (I didn’t know this would be the effect), they just said I looked dazed for a couple seconds. For me it felt like at least 5-10 minutes. Insane. I began gushing to them about what it felt like and how insane it was. Everyone else seemed to say they didn’t remember much or that it was kinda weird, but they snapped back quickly. For me it was a full experience.

It’s also one of the best experiences I ever had in my life. I’d recommend it if it wasn’t for the risk of damage to the brain.