Who or what is the 'self' we believe in? Is it an accumulation of the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves and the stories others tell about us? Do we become these stories? Can we lose these stories, or alter them?
My current Plan For Life is to get a master's degree in clinical and mental health psychology in hopes of becoming a therapist or school counselor or teacher or Pretty Good Person. Reasons for doing so include: good counseling experiences and an interest in stories. I know enough about depression to know it is not intentional, it is very real, it is scary, and in its worst moments indescribably horrible for you and anyone who loves you. Biological and environmental contributors to it are undeniable, but I do think our stories of ourselves have quite a bit to do with some depressions.
21st century-ers are as inquisitive as we are skeptical, think believing should follow experience, and certainty is more or less the end of thought and creativity, which in a way is death. Stories are in our shoes, miles flown, and resumes, taking a stab in the dark to say what we are and what we want to be, and soon enough we find a pattern and claim a story as ourselves. We tend to want some inner unchangeable self which we discover rather than create, but I think identities are more flexible, we value becoming more than being.
Maybe the goal of therapy is to hear our stories retold. The same facts, the same job, the same failed relationships, the same body, this time with a different story. Hopelessness is a story without inclination, missing imagination for what life could be without him or with that disease. We need a tilt, a shift, what Kay Ryan calls "tinkering with the fit / of what's available. / As though what is is / right already but / askew." Maybe loving someone means wishing them a good story, and therapy and conversation exist to help us believe it. To save each other by teaching us to save ourselves, giving each other a little lift so we can hold whatever it is we've been trying to hear.
1 comments:
You would be a great counselor.
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