okay so read this *before* you put your hands up as an affirmative. or if you don't want to read it you don't have to, that's okay, but then don't put your hand up or you're going to mess up my results and i'll have to do it all over again.
so i think i lost my shared identity with someone in my family. distance does that but it's not the whole story. kids always have shared identities if they're good friends i think and especially if they're friendly siblings. it's only when they get older that they can lose those. when you can be so close to someone yet so far. is this sounding sad? it is sad but that's why i want to get my shared identity back. doesn't have to be great and that doesn't mean talking any more, actually it could mean talking less, but it just means having the sense of a shared identity with that person. like i used to. i don't like the other options. i've read some examples and i really didn't like the sound of those and now i'm starting to feel what it could be like. it's as bad as i thought. and i think you can still have one even with distance between you. doesn't have to be that it has to become something else for it to be maintained. that might be the likely outcome but it's not the only one. not if *i* have something to say about it or a desire to oppose it, which i do.having people see you, especially when you're not amidst the symbols that you believe form your "real" identity-- say, a hedge fund trader who has to be home with the kids or a pretty girl in a sweats at a supermarket-- this is a kind of exposure far more embarrassing than any selfie. What if they confuse that as the real you? You can see a version of this in married couples who talk to each other, joke, eat, raise kids, do couples stuff, but don't make eye contact. Avoiding eye contact is a way of keeping reserved a part of yourself, to yourself. "I'm here," you whisper to yourself, "but I'm not going to let this all overtake me, I'm more than this." This message is strictly internal, after all, you may not be looking at them but they can still see you. Avoiding eye contact is avoiding a full on Sartre moment, the "scrutinous gaze" of the other. "Umm, first of all, scrutinous isn't a word, second of all, Sartre called it 'the look'." Um, hello? My eyes are up here. What the couple should have done to avoid this calamity is formed a shared identity, "this is us".
i read a good example of siblings who didn't have a "this is us" identity when they were grown up. it's the cautionary tale, a full on Sartre warning of what to avoid. (just kidding). but it is a clear example of what to avoid and it is important to note how much two people can interact,talk, laugh without having one of those shared identities. if you don't want to lose any of yours then it helps to see this trap for what it is, which looks to me like a full on Sarte pitfall. i sure don't want to fall into any more of those than i already have.
My brother is now seventy. His hands are burled with arthritis. Some days he walks with difficulty.
My brother sits today at his computer and pounds, literally pounds, the elegantly argued e-mails (political argument) he posts to an electronic community in darkened rooms across America. (I imagine darkened rooms because correspondents are anonymous and because so many of these colloquia are nocturnal.)
I noticed my brother sent copies of his e-mail to his nephews and nieces, as well as to our siblings. The wonder is not that he knows so much about Church history, but that such matters continue to preoccupy him. Why not let it go?
I wrote to my brother a few years ago. I told him I was bored with his e-mails about religion. Bored with his scientific perspective, as he calls it. Bored with political faith. I asked him to stop.
My brother and I have, after many years, achieved our importance to each other as a difference. Because it is sometimes difficult for my brother to climb the steps to my apartment, he will often come by and we will sit in his car and talk. We quite enjoy one another’s company.