Personal Identity
Page |1
YEARS GONE BY, FROZEN IN TIME…
AN EVALUATION OF PERSONAL IDENTITY “OBJECTIFICATION”
Page |2
What is time? Is it a measure of the distance between the past and present (as Physicist Sean Carroll mentions) or is it something more fluid (Huffington Post 2012)? Personally I have always been one to take my time; letting it pass as if it didn’t exist, living as if to exist symbiotically with it. What other people called “wasting time” I saw as experiencing it. But it wasn’t until I began to feel the stress of time that I began to wear it, and it wasn’t until I began to wear time that pieces of my identity began to embed themselves in time. What I am referring to is what I call a “gentlemen’s wrist watch”. The gentlemen’s wrist …show more content…
watch has become a distinct part of my identity by uniquely embodying multiple aspects of my personality and overt and covert beliefs about the world simultaneously. This piece of material culture has even surpassed the significance of my object presented in lab 1 (my Dihkr or Islamic Prayer beads). As close to my heart my faith is, I have left the house multiple times without my beads around my neck but I have almost never left without a watch on my wrist. From color to material, to style, and function, every aspect of my watch has been intricately observed and selected to complement some aspect of my beliefs of the world and myself. This isn’t by accident or random chance either. At a young age I discovered that every feeling or assumption, no matter how insignificant it may seem, comes from somewhere. This was first (at least as I can recollect) made apparently obvious to me when my older sister challenged me on my taste for Asian women over African American women; to me it just seemed to be personal preference. But as I delved deeper into my own conscious I found that the foundation was derived from my love for exotic, foreign, and things associated with martial arts. Particularly, things that are not representative of modern Asian culture. This revelation forced me to step back and evaluate what other subconscious assumptions have manifested themselves in my life and how I can I train my brain to readily access these subconscious forces to better evaluate my daily decisions.
It has become a great point of personal interest how one piece of jewelry can encompass so much of my identity. The “profound aesthetics” of my favorite watch holds various manifest and latent meanings. The manifest or obvious meaning of the object is to track time and be readily accessible. A gold face dial and number set against a white canvas make it easy to read while the brown leather band is equipped with a buckle and multiple holes so that it can fit multiple sized wrists comfortably. The gauge for adjusting the watch is also ridged as to provide ease and accuracy. The latent meaning, on the other hand, is much more profound. The gold face against the white canvas symbolizes wealth,
Page |3 cleanliness, and purity while the 2-dial style and roman numerals symbolize efficiency and technical prowess. The brown-leather band shows connectedness to nature and the slim design exemplifies elegance and class. Wearing the watch itself for me is also a testament of God consciousness, born from Suraht Al-Asr (Chapter of the time) of the Holy
Qur’an; “In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful; By (the Token of) Time (Through the ages), Verily Man is in loss, Except such as have Faith, and do righteous deeds, and (join together) in the mutual teaching of truth, and of
Patience and Constancy”(The Holy Qur’an, 2001:676). Although I have given much thought to my own personal bias to this particular object, I will evaluate my assumptions based on scholarly studies of Berger and the research of Rathje.
In challenging my assumption, the best place to start would be with understanding how Freud’s psyche levels and forces have come into play in my “self-objectification”.
Freud’s theory includes 3 psyche levels (Conscious, subconscious, Unknowing conscious) which are influenced by 3 psyche forces (Id, ego, super-ego). The psyche levels seem to work in a progressively-independent way. The Unknowing conscious serves as the incubator of assumptions, while also holding implicit assumptions. The sub conscious is the space of transition of these assumptions from random access to readily acquire as well as the holding bin for pseudo-assumptions. Lastly, the conscious is the space for explicit assumptions that are realized and fully understood (to the best of our knowledge). Yet even in the conscious the other levels of psyche play a role in constantly reforming and challenging assumptions. According to the above evaluation of the levels of psyche, my connection to watches started with my admiration of individuals like James Bond, Indiana Jones,
The Great Gatsby, Sherlock Holmes, and the like. These individual became a part of my random access memory that manifested its self into an unrealistic desire to become the most interesting man in the world, a sort of idiosyncrasy. But as this assumption became coupled with the fact that the world is a large and diverse place and that I would have …show more content…
to appeal to the sensibilities of all of the world’s patrons simultaneously (which started to become a both moral and social dilemma for me), this naive or pseudo assumption grew into a replication of the qualities of appearing as the “most interesting man in the world” without really embodying those qualities. First impressions are everything, right? The id, ego, and super ego then try to help the brain find balance as it manages all of these conflicting and synthesizing ideals.
This progression leads me to think about how other people perceive my material culture. This dawned on me in our first class when we introduced ourselves to those sitting immediately around us. One person in my group introduced
Page |4 himself and the materials he currently wore; he stated, “by looking at me, you would think that I was a rich guy because of the way I dress; when in fact I am quite poor.” The interesting part is that I had already made pre-assumed notions even before he began to speak, by evaluating his dress! What he had perceived as an imitation of high society, I had perceived the same way as well, an imitation of high society; which was very telling of his actual financial situation. This makes me wonder how my object (a $60 retail watch that I bought for $20) is perceived by those whom have a better understanding of the culture that I am seeking to acquire. This epiphany is also telling of taste cultures and, even more so, role adherence and manipulation (Berger 2009: 4). In my efforts to acquire a certain taste cultures which is outside of the cast or socio-economic standing that I was born into, and am currently still apart of, I am defying and manipulating societal roles. As stated by Berger “Fashion is an area where one can display improper socialization, by wearing clothes that are not appropriate to one’s status” I am stepping outside of my role in society by seeking to imitate and acquire the benefits of a higher cast. But with the current generation being one that has inherited the defiance and frustrations of the baby boomer generation in concerns to the stratifications of the world, this concept of role is becoming more and more irrelevant and archaic.
Rathje, in his book Rubbish, offers a very thorough (and long winded) evaluation of what garbage tells us about material culture, with the focus being the project at the garbage dump “Fresh Kills”. An interesting thing about fresh kills is that the original idea was to use old, discarded material culture to be a foundation for building new material cultures
(Rathje 2001: 4). This makes me wonder what it means when an object loses relevance. This is obviously a combination of the loss of both manifest and latent function, but how and why does this loss of relevance play out for the individual?
Let’s take my object for example. As explained in my introduction this object has a lot of manifest meaning to me, but I can say with certainty that if it lost its latent function its manifest meaning would become irrelevant. This become all too obvious when I dropped my watch one day and slightly scratched the screen. The immediate thought that came to mind was that I would have to get a new one of the same design, color and style. Though I quickly realized how irrational and excessive this thought was, the watch has permanently lost a certain amount of relevance.
Permanently changing it definition from what it was, making it closer to becoming garbage. So, as Rathge describes, as things lose their relevance and eventually become garbage they seemingly lose all meaning to us, but with that I would like to pose the question what if somebody tried to take your garbage? What if somebody (after losing its relevance) tried to take my watch?
Page |5
As I evaluate my “self-objectifications” I revisit the symbolic nature of Fresh Kills in using discarded material culture to be a foundation for building new material cultures and wonder how the material cultures I embraced now are but temporary, foundational artifacts to material cultures I will embrace in the future. I think of how the manifest functions of my material are as fragile as crystal glass, beautiful to look at but shattering at the slightest impact of changing identity. I wonder what, once my gentlemen’s wrist watch has lost relevance, will be the story it told to garbologist and archeologist about the past me. What pieces of my identity will forever remain with my watch; forever frozen in
time?
Page |6
REFERENCES CITED
Huffington Post
HuffPost Science, Electronic Document, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/31/what-is-time-seancarroll_n_2339539.html, December 13th, 2012
Islamic Book Service
2009 The Holy Qur’an with Colour Coded Tahjweed Rules, Kucha Chelan, Darya Ganj, New Delhi
Berger, Arthur A.
2009 What Objects Mean: An Introduction to Material Culture. Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek, California
Rathje, William L., Murphy, Cullen
2001 Rubbish! The Archeology of Garbage. The University of Arizona Press, Tucson, Arizona
YEARS GONE BY, FROZEN IN TIME…
AN EVALUATION OF PERSONAL IDENTITY “OBJECTIFICATION”
Page |2
What is time? Is it a measure of the distance between the past and present (as Physicist Sean Carroll mentions) or is it something more fluid (Huffington Post 2012)? Personally I have always been one to take my time; letting it pass as if it didn’t exist, living as if to exist symbiotically with it. What other people called “wasting time” I saw as experiencing it. But it wasn’t until I began to feel the stress of time that I began to wear it, and it wasn’t until I began to wear time that pieces of my identity began to embed themselves in time. What I am referring to is what I call a “gentlemen’s wrist watch”. The gentlemen’s wrist …show more content…
watch has become a distinct part of my identity by uniquely embodying multiple aspects of my personality and overt and covert beliefs about the world simultaneously. This piece of material culture has even surpassed the significance of my object presented in lab 1 (my Dihkr or Islamic Prayer beads). As close to my heart my faith is, I have left the house multiple times without my beads around my neck but I have almost never left without a watch on my wrist. From color to material, to style, and function, every aspect of my watch has been intricately observed and selected to complement some aspect of my beliefs of the world and myself. This isn’t by accident or random chance either. At a young age I discovered that every feeling or assumption, no matter how insignificant it may seem, comes from somewhere. This was first (at least as I can recollect) made apparently obvious to me when my older sister challenged me on my taste for Asian women over African American women; to me it just seemed to be personal preference. But as I delved deeper into my own conscious I found that the foundation was derived from my love for exotic, foreign, and things associated with martial arts. Particularly, things that are not representative of modern Asian culture. This revelation forced me to step back and evaluate what other subconscious assumptions have manifested themselves in my life and how I can I train my brain to readily access these subconscious forces to better evaluate my daily decisions.
It has become a great point of personal interest how one piece of jewelry can encompass so much of my identity. The “profound aesthetics” of my favorite watch holds various manifest and latent meanings. The manifest or obvious meaning of the object is to track time and be readily accessible. A gold face dial and number set against a white canvas make it easy to read while the brown leather band is equipped with a buckle and multiple holes so that it can fit multiple sized wrists comfortably. The gauge for adjusting the watch is also ridged as to provide ease and accuracy. The latent meaning, on the other hand, is much more profound. The gold face against the white canvas symbolizes wealth,
Page |3 cleanliness, and purity while the 2-dial style and roman numerals symbolize efficiency and technical prowess. The brown-leather band shows connectedness to nature and the slim design exemplifies elegance and class. Wearing the watch itself for me is also a testament of God consciousness, born from Suraht Al-Asr (Chapter of the time) of the Holy
Qur’an; “In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful; By (the Token of) Time (Through the ages), Verily Man is in loss, Except such as have Faith, and do righteous deeds, and (join together) in the mutual teaching of truth, and of
Patience and Constancy”(The Holy Qur’an, 2001:676). Although I have given much thought to my own personal bias to this particular object, I will evaluate my assumptions based on scholarly studies of Berger and the research of Rathje.
In challenging my assumption, the best place to start would be with understanding how Freud’s psyche levels and forces have come into play in my “self-objectification”.
Freud’s theory includes 3 psyche levels (Conscious, subconscious, Unknowing conscious) which are influenced by 3 psyche forces (Id, ego, super-ego). The psyche levels seem to work in a progressively-independent way. The Unknowing conscious serves as the incubator of assumptions, while also holding implicit assumptions. The sub conscious is the space of transition of these assumptions from random access to readily acquire as well as the holding bin for pseudo-assumptions. Lastly, the conscious is the space for explicit assumptions that are realized and fully understood (to the best of our knowledge). Yet even in the conscious the other levels of psyche play a role in constantly reforming and challenging assumptions. According to the above evaluation of the levels of psyche, my connection to watches started with my admiration of individuals like James Bond, Indiana Jones,
The Great Gatsby, Sherlock Holmes, and the like. These individual became a part of my random access memory that manifested its self into an unrealistic desire to become the most interesting man in the world, a sort of idiosyncrasy. But as this assumption became coupled with the fact that the world is a large and diverse place and that I would have …show more content…
to appeal to the sensibilities of all of the world’s patrons simultaneously (which started to become a both moral and social dilemma for me), this naive or pseudo assumption grew into a replication of the qualities of appearing as the “most interesting man in the world” without really embodying those qualities. First impressions are everything, right? The id, ego, and super ego then try to help the brain find balance as it manages all of these conflicting and synthesizing ideals.
This progression leads me to think about how other people perceive my material culture. This dawned on me in our first class when we introduced ourselves to those sitting immediately around us. One person in my group introduced
Page |4 himself and the materials he currently wore; he stated, “by looking at me, you would think that I was a rich guy because of the way I dress; when in fact I am quite poor.” The interesting part is that I had already made pre-assumed notions even before he began to speak, by evaluating his dress! What he had perceived as an imitation of high society, I had perceived the same way as well, an imitation of high society; which was very telling of his actual financial situation. This makes me wonder how my object (a $60 retail watch that I bought for $20) is perceived by those whom have a better understanding of the culture that I am seeking to acquire. This epiphany is also telling of taste cultures and, even more so, role adherence and manipulation (Berger 2009: 4). In my efforts to acquire a certain taste cultures which is outside of the cast or socio-economic standing that I was born into, and am currently still apart of, I am defying and manipulating societal roles. As stated by Berger “Fashion is an area where one can display improper socialization, by wearing clothes that are not appropriate to one’s status” I am stepping outside of my role in society by seeking to imitate and acquire the benefits of a higher cast. But with the current generation being one that has inherited the defiance and frustrations of the baby boomer generation in concerns to the stratifications of the world, this concept of role is becoming more and more irrelevant and archaic.
Rathje, in his book Rubbish, offers a very thorough (and long winded) evaluation of what garbage tells us about material culture, with the focus being the project at the garbage dump “Fresh Kills”. An interesting thing about fresh kills is that the original idea was to use old, discarded material culture to be a foundation for building new material cultures
(Rathje 2001: 4). This makes me wonder what it means when an object loses relevance. This is obviously a combination of the loss of both manifest and latent function, but how and why does this loss of relevance play out for the individual?
Let’s take my object for example. As explained in my introduction this object has a lot of manifest meaning to me, but I can say with certainty that if it lost its latent function its manifest meaning would become irrelevant. This become all too obvious when I dropped my watch one day and slightly scratched the screen. The immediate thought that came to mind was that I would have to get a new one of the same design, color and style. Though I quickly realized how irrational and excessive this thought was, the watch has permanently lost a certain amount of relevance.
Permanently changing it definition from what it was, making it closer to becoming garbage. So, as Rathge describes, as things lose their relevance and eventually become garbage they seemingly lose all meaning to us, but with that I would like to pose the question what if somebody tried to take your garbage? What if somebody (after losing its relevance) tried to take my watch?
Page |5
As I evaluate my “self-objectifications” I revisit the symbolic nature of Fresh Kills in using discarded material culture to be a foundation for building new material cultures and wonder how the material cultures I embraced now are but temporary, foundational artifacts to material cultures I will embrace in the future. I think of how the manifest functions of my material are as fragile as crystal glass, beautiful to look at but shattering at the slightest impact of changing identity. I wonder what, once my gentlemen’s wrist watch has lost relevance, will be the story it told to garbologist and archeologist about the past me. What pieces of my identity will forever remain with my watch; forever frozen in
time?
Page |6
REFERENCES CITED
Huffington Post
HuffPost Science, Electronic Document, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/31/what-is-time-seancarroll_n_2339539.html, December 13th, 2012
Islamic Book Service
2009 The Holy Qur’an with Colour Coded Tahjweed Rules, Kucha Chelan, Darya Ganj, New Delhi
Berger, Arthur A.
2009 What Objects Mean: An Introduction to Material Culture. Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek, California
Rathje, William L., Murphy, Cullen
2001 Rubbish! The Archeology of Garbage. The University of Arizona Press, Tucson, Arizona