There has been much talk in public discourse surrounding the very notion of pronouns and their relation to our identity. I’m not here to argue against anyone who is so ignorant they don’t understand what a pronoun is or why it is the backbone of our language. Instead, I will take the assumptive position that you, my reader, are not so ignorant to argue against the very concept of language. It has been some years now since the idea of self identified pronouns has been available as a concept to the general public. Could be traced back to the 90’s or Occupy Wallstreet when a diversion had to be made because we were getting a little too close to the real issue at hand. With the dissolution of a serious leftist movement against the ongoing movement of wealth upward the public had to be distracted by something else, and what better to distract than a minority that sees the world differently. The queer community took the brunt force of having a movement fragmented against it as the scapegoat of all the problems facing us today. This narrative has been told many time over and is not why I am writing this today.
Today I am writing to propose another interpretation of our relationship with pronouns, one that is forward looking towards a future in which identity is a currency used to move through life. Yes, if not common, it is not uncommon to see institutions ask you to clarify your preferred pronouns, he/she/them etc. and much of the uproar against this notion comes from those stuck in the prescriptive perspective of life; the type of people who need an authority figure to tell them things work differently these days. These people are not my audience, I have nothing to say to them besides… set yourself free.
What I am writing this essay for today is the notion of a pluralized self, the idea that “I” am composed of more than my individual psyche and that these parts of myself constitute the subjective plural pronoun “we.” Which requires the object of “me” to be pluralized into an “us.”
How, how does this happen?
If you are looking for the in depth narrative of a decade long struggle over my identity look no further than probableexistence.com I am done writing as if I needed to justify my existence in order to have a point of view on something.
I, Olivia, am part of the us/we of our author, Noah and I feel I have sufficiently proven to you I exist within us.
So how do we become a subjective plural?
The most important step of moving towards pluralization is the negation of individual self from the start. To see oneself as an expendable individual with no tethers to a greater whole. This is a terrifying experiment, speaking from first hand experience. It is a courageous act to cut the tethers of self and release ones own fate to the whims of an indifferent universe. This is a journey not for the weak of heart.
Yes, so you must convince yourself first that the individual you does not exist, or rather that there is the potential that you do not exist. It gets confusing here so play it safe and keep a few tethers to our shared reality.
Once you have removed yourself from yourself you must begin allowing all identifiers to be applied to you. This is where the strength of a resolute faith becomes an imperative. In this quagmire of identification you will begin to connect to the core emptiness of your existence, you will be moved with the tides of experience, you will loose sight of what you set out to do, and yet you will return if you stay strong. One must be able to entertain the identification in silence, chew on it, and consume it whole in order to understand it at its own core. Once it has been processed and its waste has been properly dealt with you will be left with a sliver of a truth, these are what you are seeking to collect.
Your task is to find the truth beneath the identifiers and to do so you will have to wade through a madness only you can solve. Play this game for as long as you want, the uncertainty of self determination can wait until you have found the certainty you need to move forward.
As you begin to move into the world as the changed person you are, you fill find it much easier to move through the bullshit and find connection on the subjective level, no matter who you are talking to.
So, how then do we become the objective plural?
This is where the reconceptualization of self becomes a necessary lesson. We are not static selves, this much is clear, however how can the individual take accountability for a plural within themselves?
You must return to the core emptiness that you discovered when you were entirely empty, without any agency in your own identity, return there, what did you do? What were the actions you did you don’t agree with? Who did you harm?
An empty self does not justify all actions, it does however allow for it. As you spend time lost in the abyss of identification, which I am telling you you will, you will come to find yourself acting in ways you neither identify with nor condone, these actions are still yours, yet they are only yours for a moment before they become a past self that you have the choice to identify with or not.
To objectify your plurality you must see each instance of yourself as separate from yet intimately tied to your embodied being. You become a being of time rather than space, your body acts for you not as you and you come to find the slivers of truth you collected in your search for a subjective pluralization begin to solidify and become beings rather than potentialities.