59. And Our Redemption Arc is Coming Up...

(With apologies to the Seattle Garages.)

Much has been made of two major ways of relating to personal identity, neither one better than the other, and both of them seemingly innate. There's episodic identity, where you consider yourself a different person altogether from who you were in past years, and diachronic identity, where you consider yourself to be the very same person in all respects to who you were long ago. Naturally, there are in-between ways to see yourself: the timescale of episodes can vary widely, trending towards diachronicity at the long end; alternately, the starkness of the episodic cuts can be softened, with each new self being a new version rather than a complete renewal.

For myself, I tend towards the diachronic side, but not completely. When I think about the course of my life to date, I tend to divide it into rough eras or arcs; I've been the same person throughout, with mostly the same core drives and motivations and capacities and interests, but have clearly grown and changed through it all. If you think it might be helpful for you to do the same, here are a few tips. First, think about events of major significance to you. They could be conventionally accepted major events or turning points, or ones purely of outsized significance to you. For another bit of structure, think about tropes, themes, and arc words for any given arc. What mistakes did you keep on making that whole time? What phrases did you keep coming back to? Is there a material or a color that represents the arc to you? And are there overarching meta-themes to those themes and tropes that you perceive? For one last suggestion, it's best not to try to interpret arcs until they've been over for a few years. They'll be clearer in hindsight. (Life can only be understood backwards, or so they say.)

For a worked example, here's a very compressed and very partial sketch of how I divide up my life thus far into arcs:

  • The Dawn Age, 1993-2004
    • Starts with my birth and continued until after my National Spelling Bee run
    • Themes of rapid growth with little control, making friends and moving away, early triumphs and bruises; associated with sapphire and royal blue
    • "Your mind is like an untrained dog." 
  • The Age of Depths, 2004-early 2011
    • Starts with middle school in full swing and ends with college acceptances and running into EY (lol)
    • Themes of intellectual and physical development, isolation and first attempts at independence, loss of faith, continued lack of control, and constant struggle; associated with wood and slate gray
    • "...A pleasure to have in class but not making connections with his peers."
  • The Age of Missed Connections, late 2011-2019
    • Starts shortly after the start of undergrad and continued until shortly after I got my doctoral thesis result 
    • Themes of discovery amidst struggle, perseverance, disillusionment, repeatedly finding and losing community, survival, fraught relationship with hope, missed connections and opportunities, partially wresting back control, and scarcity amidst plenty 
    • Early half - the New Jersey Years; associated with gold and orange
    • Late half - the Chicago Years; associated with silver (material and color)
    • "You've gotta be the dumbest smart person I've ever met."
  • The Plague Years, 2020-2023
    • Starts when I stocked up on suppplies and went into lockdown in March 2020 and continued until I left academia for good(?)
    • Themes of isolation and community, the first shoots of self-determination, maturity and caregiving, and disappointment; associated with rubber and olive green
    • "It can't be helped." 
  • The Current Age (The Age of Sparks? The Age of Regrowth?)
    • Who can say, really?
    • Starts with encountering CRW and QD, who encouraged me to apply for summer research programs
    • Themes of striking out, being intentional, recovering agenticity, reaching out to new people, drive, active struggle, severe disappointment 
    • Associated with aluminum and midnight blue
    • "This would be so good if it were good." 

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