Last week, Jeff asked a perennially popular question: “Why Did God Make Me This Way?” He provided an alternative way to look at things that takes into account natural processes, but his answer didn’t address the underlying question: what way are we? (We tried very hard to derail his post to discuss that instead.)
We learn that there are certain things about us that are core to who we are, and other things that are only incidental. Perhaps, certain aspects of our being are temporary blemishes, inherited through our being born in a fallen world.
But how do we distinguish? And even if we can distinguish, how does this impact who we are?
Commenters to Jeff’s post raised up examples:
I have a friend who is paralyzed from the neck down. She doesn’t complain, rather she believes that she wouldn’t be “who she is” without being paralyzed. Take away her paralysis and you take away part of what makes up her identity.
Or how about an example raised elsewhere?
Deafness because it is intrinsically tied with language and thus communication, encourages it’s [sic] own culture-it really demands it-It changes the way you see the world…Many Deaf Mormons I know don’t want to be Hearing. They don’t want to be healed or fixed. They understand they may not be deaf but are worried they might not be Deaf. It’s just so much a part of them they wonder if they would recognize themselves were they “healed”. I warble between wondering why someone wouldn’t want to hear!! and wondering if very dear characteristics I value in them would be healed away.
I also wrote about this subject recently.
My issue is this…people tell me that I’m a Child of God, and that this has profound implications for who I am (and what kinds of things make me fundamentally who I am). People tell me that I had an existence before this thread of mortality, and that I will persist in an eternal woven tapestry after I’ve died.
And as a result, who I am is an eternal being deserves to strive for eternal values.
…But it just doesn’t feel that way…
What does being a child of God even feel like? It doesn’t feel like anything! Whatever rights or responsibilities or burdens or glories come with it seem undetectable.
Yet, I’m supposed to adopt this shadowy, undetectable birthright over my mortal inheritance…Yet, things that people tell me are defects feel integrated into my fiber as strengths. These things change the way I view the world and interact with others for the better.
I’m supposed to abandon these things, yet these things feel like the things that make me who I am.
The deaf person should shun deafness, regret deafness, lament deafness, pity deafness, and hope to be cured of deafness. The gay person should shun homosexuality, regret homosexuality, lament homosexuality, pity homosexuality, and hope to be cured of homosexuality.
But at what cost?
How can a person be “cured” of such things while still being the same person? Or is deafness like hair color?
Answer this for yourself: what aspects of your life do you feel have the most impact on who you are and how you interact with the world? Would the absence of these things significantly change that? Would you be able to recognize yourself as yourself with those changes, or would the person staring you in the mirror seem too foreign? And how do you reconcile that with a religion that prizes such changes?
Wheat & Tares 
I firmly hold to the ideal that growing necessarily involves change, sometimes transformative change. My 15 year old self (never mind my 5 year old self) would not recognize my current self . Professionally, my just-got-a-job self would not recognize my current self either.
This is good. Change is good, growth is good.
I have fibromyalgia and it impacts every aspect of my life to a large degree. The limitations it has imposed on me have forced me to grow in order to accommodate it. I have learned a great deal from the experience and I would not change it or trade it for anything. That being said, I would not mourn a return to full health, either.
I think that to a certain extent, our physical and mental capabilities give us a sense of identity, but they ought not to be the sole aspect of our identity, similarly with our jobs, our family, or whatever else. We are greater than the sum of our parts and denying the rest to focus on only one is not the best path, in my opinion.
To be cured of deafness, or paralysis, or whatever other limitation ought to be embraced as an opportunity for growth, not mourned as a death of personhood.
I guess in the end, I would just say that staying the same is less important to me than becoming more and greater than what I used to be, frightening though it may be at times.
Nicely said Matt.
Matt,
Thanks for the comment. Nevertheless, I recognize a distinction in many times…between “growth” and “change.” (Or rather, growth as a type of change…and change in a different sense.)
I don’t think that the ideal is to “stay the same.” But rather, I think of the distinction as whether we are “me (and then some)” or whether we are “someone else.”
If my past self doesn’t recognize my current self, then I can’t really say that I’m “me (and then some).” I’m instead someone else. This isn’t shocking in and of itself…but if my past self can’t recognize my current self, then what’s to stop my current self from failing to recognize my future self? It’s a slippery slope that annihilates identity completely.
On the other hand, I believe that I can grow, but still recognize myself. I can say, “OK, that was me…and I’m the same person…but plus x, y, and z.” or I can say, “That was me, and now I’m the same person, but with a better understanding or development of x aspect.”
I am a rational person with an insatiable curiosity. Logic appeals to me. It’s just how my brain is wired. It affects everything I do, from my profession in medicine, to how I listen to and respond to music, to how I approach relationships, to literally how I see the world.
Being this way has enabled me to do many things that I wouldn’t otherwise have been able to do for my family and for everyone around me. Being this way has enabled me to help thousands of patients over the years to walk and function and live better lives.
At the same time, it has obviously affected my role in the Church. Certain roles come easy to me. I can organize and see things that need done. I can get things done efficiently. I have studied a wide range of religions and philosophies and have found tremendous good in many, many faiths and people.
But there is a flip side. Because of how I am wired, the word “know” means something very specific. I can’t say I “know” the Church is true. To my brain, “knowing” is something fairly specific, and isn’t based on an emotion or a feeling or any of the ways I was taught that we get a “testimony”. And I don’t think I’ll ever “know” that this is The True Church unless something completely out of the ordinary happens. So this obviously limits leadership roles in the Church – who can imaging a Bishop who can’t stand up and say, “I know this Church is true”?
It also limits missionary work. I have seen much good in other religions. I have felt the same good emotions I feel when I read the Book of Mormon as I do when I read the Qu’ran or the Dhammapada. If those feelings are supposed to testify of the “truth” of this Church, then I suppose they also testify of the truth of Islam and Buddhism and Hinduism. So I don’t know that I’d make a great missionary either.
Being this way also limits my acceptance of nonsensical rules and traditions. Who cares what color shirt you have? Who cares how many earrings you have? When Christ and Joseph Smith drank wine, can it really be an eternal principle to NOT drink wine? Who cares if a bishop has a beard – Christ did.
So, would I change? Change what? This is who I am. I don’t fit in the traditional roles of the Church, but the Church is where I fit.
I’ve thought about this question a lot, and naturally it always makes me think of my son who has Asperger’s syndrome.
He’s nine years old, so obviously he’ll grow and change. Yet it hardly makes sense to think of him being “cured” because with a “cured” character/personality style, he’d be a different person.
I know that this is a bit of a borderline example, because a single generation ago, he wouldn’t have been diagnosed with anything at all — he’d just be considered “different,” so there wouldn’t be any idea of seeking a “cure” for having the personality he has. Yet it’s a little like our evolving ideas about being gay. Sometimes you’re not “wrong” just different.
Interesting post. It reminds me of something that happened to me a few years ago. I’m African-American. Being a black woman greatly affects the way I interact with the world around me. It’s a huge part of who I am.
One day I was having lunch with a friend who is also a black woman and also LDS and she made a comment that when we’re resurrected we’ll all be white. I was shocked and told her that wasn’t true and of course she insisted that it was. I left that conversation feeling deeply disturbed. This idea is disturbing to me on so many levels, but one of the many problems I have with it is that I feel like if I were resurrected as a different race I would not be me. I’d be someone else, and I don’t want to be someone else.
I have a son who is borderline Asperger’s. Very weird kid, yet far more enjoyable to be around than his older I-hate-the-world brother.
Mike: I am in total sympathy. I’ve had many an argument about “know” vs. “believe”. I remember the transition to “I know” in the late 70s, early 80s and believe it has caused a definite shift in LDS culture especially with members under 40.
As for me, I’ve known my whole life that I didn’t fit with the church, but was so thoroughly indoctrinated in it that it took until I was forty to accept that it wasn’t for me. (Leaving turned out to be so easy for me, I’m baffled why I didn’t do it when I was twelve, and then remember my family dynamics.)
Lovelyn,
I have also (unfortunately) had that kind of conversation with some people in the church. What I’ve noticed each time is that the other person generally doesn’t recognize the loadedness of the assertion.
If my past self doesn’t recognize my current self, then I can’t really say that I’m “me (and then some).” I’m instead someone else.
That is the whole heart of many issues. What if your past self would not have recognized the person you were ten years ago, but would be comfortable with the person you are now??
Have you been destroyed twice?
6. Really like your example.
If we are raised to “perfect” bodies…what does that really mean? I would prefer to have some of my idiosyncrasies that make up “me” than be perfected into someone who I am not.
I guess that makes me rethink the paradigm anyway.
If I don’t recognize myself, then have I destroyed someone, or have I lost someone?
If it’s instead the latter, then couldn’t I find myself too?
re 10:
Troth, it probably means that rhinoplasty will not have that great of a return on investment for the eternally-minded consumer.
I mentioned this on another post, but I’d like to say it again here. I am still uncomfortable when we compare disabilities to things like sexual orientation. If gender is eternal, as it says in the Proclamation, then perhaps things like homosexuality are essential parts of the personality and not just diseases or disabilities which will vanish in the next life. Lovelyn #6, I tend to think race may be the same way. What if we viewed these things as variations of the human being which are ordained by the Divine, and approved on Earth and in Heaven? How might such a view affect our treatment and acceptance of others and indeed ourselves?
BiV, while I share your discomfort for the same reason, at the same time, I’m trying to work through this discomfort in this post (and the one I made on my blog).
Your comment is filtered through the Proclamation’s understanding of what things are eternal…but at the heart of it, you say, “perhaps things like homosexuality are essential parts of the personality.”
When I talk about the “self,” I believe I am referring — in whole or in part — to the essential parts of the personality…to things that, if they are not present, yield a different personality and a different self.
So, I think that comparison to things which are viewed as disabilities can be extremely instructive, especially since many also view homosexuality to be a disability.
If, in the next life, someone who was blind became able to see, would this significantly change her personality?
The disconcerting thing for me at least is that the same question can be asked for homosexuality: If in the next life, someone who was gay became heterosexual, would this significantly change his personality?
I believe that the answer is “yes” for both of these in a way that isn’t for something like hair color.
FWIW, this doesn’t make me feel more comfortable though, because it makes me consider two possibilities: 1) disability or disease can be integral to personality and self (and homosexuality may very well be a disability) or 2) I’m “prejudiced” against things like blindness, deafness, etc., in a way that many people are prejudiced against homosexuality.
Very interesting discussion. I suppose from an LDS view of the world it gets down to what parts of us are eternal and what parts aren’t.
Before we came to this earth we did not have bodies. Does that mean we also did not have “race”? That seems plausible to me. We must have had some sense of gender if we accept the Proclamation on family, but we did not, I assume, have bodily appetites.
What stays with us when we die and go to the spirit world? Or when we are resurrected? Do our physical cravings stay with us in the spirit world even when we don’t have a body with which to satisfy those cravings?
I don’t have answers to any of those questions, but it seems those answers might inform some of those in the OP.
I do have a couple of experiences & observations from my own life:
1. I would happily give up my physical disability. Yes, it has taught me a great deal. Yes I have compassion that I might not otherwise have had. But I would give it up in a second if I could. I don’t suggest others should be so willing, nor do I suggest any other trait ought to be considered a disability, but I’d love to dump mine.
2. The addicted loved on in my life changed substantially as a part of his addiction. Though today he is in recovery (and tomorrow he may not be), he will never be his pre-addiction self again. I mourned the loss of that person and have had to come to terms with the new person who has taken his place. I will be interested to see which rises in the ressurection (or if it’s a different person all together).
The scriptures teach us to put off the natural man by submitting in a childlike way to the will of our Father in Heaven. Surely this brings changes to ourselves. The rite of baptism symbolizes a death and rebirth. I’m not sure we ought to seek to retain all that we are as we walk through this life.
So much of what we consider to be our “selves” is all just ego, the self’s self-image. But the real self is behind all that. It’s not the voice in our heads, but the entity listening to the voice.
IMO, most physical things are part of that ephemeral ego, and yet they do change us. Viewing the world through a specific physical lens is bound to change the looker. There’s an old Star Trek episode in which a race of explorers have to assume human form to travel the amount of time they need to travel, and in so doing they become human; they start to act human, not like their own race (of course giving Kirk a chance to score some alien babe action). I think we would find the same to be true of all of us if we were a different race, sexual orientation, size or shape. Who we think we are would actually be a little different if we interacted with the world from that other vantage point.
Some of our preferences and personality traits may be inate, but many are a byproduct of the skills we’ve had to learn because of the way our particular physical make-up interacts with the world and the reactions we get in that process.
re 16:
On my site, the discussion quickly turned to ego preservation and ego death.
The thing that I couldn’t get beyond (but maybe that’s the point) is that, without the ego…I’m pretty dull. Without the self-image…I’m a blank slate.
So certainly, I can see how many aspects are byproducts of skills we’ve had to learn because of our circumstances…but this doesn’t seem to negate that those preferences are critical in determining who we are.
Andrew – I think there’s a difference between Freud’s “ego” and Buddha’s. I was thinking about Buddhism rather than psychology. I don’t subscribe to the notion that we would all be identical or blank without the ego, just that we would be who we are really.
But the other view, also worth considering, is the observation Victor Frankl made – at every level of our humanity we have great capacity for good or evil. We choose every day and within every day the kind of person we are becoming. You can start out a humanitarian and end a serial killer or vice-versa.
hawkgrrrl,
From what little (and it is admittedly little) I know about Buddha, the Buddhist annihilationist view scares me even more than the Christian subsume-within-Christ annihilationist view.
nirvana’s not for me, I suppose.
Andrew/hawkgrrrl:
Buddhism was the first thing that came to mind with your comment about the “real self”, etc. I think using the term “ego” is loaded with Freudian implications. Instead, I like the concept of thoughts being just another sense. Just like we can pay attention to images coming in through our visual system, or to sensations coming in, we can also learn to watch our thoughts. We can watch them arise and go away. We can watch emotions get triggered and can decide what to do with them by how much we pay attention to them.
Being able to watch our thoughts suggests that there is something “deeper”, a more “true” self. I think it touches on spirit in a way I can’t quite put my finger on (he he) but it is a tremendously useful way to look at the world. I also think that this “true” self is deeply and amazingly interconnected with everyone and everything. We truly are brothers and sisters.
And I also don’t quite think an “annihilist” view is quite the right way to look at it. The goal is to eliminate suffering. By avoiding rebirth, suffering necessarily ends. We couch it differently in LDS theology, but our ideal heaven also involves ending suffering. We hope we will not suffer the pains of the body. We will not have hunger or disease or infirmities. But will we truly end suffering?
What if one of our loved ones ends up in a different kingdom through various choices? Will we see them? If not, can we truly be happy? What if we spend eternity wondering, if only this or that? Wouldn’t that be an eternal form of suffering?
In reality, we don’t really know what lies on the other side of death. We all have our theories based on someone’s interpretation of a fragment of what someone else might have unofficially said.
Regardless of what I think or what theories there are in my head about my existence and my surroundings, I think who I am is composed of what I do.
If I go to the LDS church, I’m a mormon. If I don’t go to church, I’m inactive (even if I believe in the doctrines…I am what I do).
So I think it is less about if I’m deaf, or if I’m a white American male, or whatever traits I am given through life, what makes me what I am are my actions. And those actions lead to consequences which influence my choices which make up who I am further.
re 21:
Heber13, but then, doesn’t a deaf person simply become “one who does not hear”…that’s what one does…and that CERTAINLY has consequences which influence later choices.
Similarly, if you go to the LDS church, but experience pangs of doubt, does that make you “one who doubts” (an activity?)
On the other hand, this raises a good point…is doubt or belief something you “do”? Or is it more a state of being. I think many members (at least, many of the ones I’ve talked to online) would like to make doubt or belief into an action that can be chosen. So they would say, “Why not just choose to believe?”