Is Our Innate Sense of Self an Illusion?

Sociologist Erving Goffman, through this lovely illustration below, draws in from Shakespeare’s iconic line –

“The whole world is a stage”

And elaborates on a demonstration of the various masks we wear in our daily lives and how there isn’t really a “true self.” The self is someone who orchestrates and coordinates between these different roles we play but doesn’t exist in any form that can be described, even when we are alone.

Kahlil Gibran, on this topic, talks to his aspirational self and says:

“My path is not thy path, yet together we walk, hand in hand.”

His dialogue is an effort to isolate the very real conflict that all of us experience at some point, if not always- being able to differentiate who we really are from what our societal, external self has become. The elusive yet everlasting inquiry into knowing where we end and where our environment begins.

Dwell further on this topic by reading The Proof Of Evolution

Video by BBC