self stacking

The concept of a "self" only really works if it's stacked in the proper order. it only works if each layer is true. And the overall structure does need to be stacked; can't build a jenga tower while skipping levels Interestingly you can empty out entire levels without the tower falling, but only if the tower was soundly built in the proper order --- hi! you are reading this page. :) when you engage your sense of self qualitatively, what do you feel? steady/unsteady, home/adrift, other/other? we'll come back to that now: who are you? how do you identify? if it's easier to think about this question in a specific context, that's cool: who is your work-self, maybe? or your primary-relationship-self? we'll come back to that now: when *that* identity is in question, who do you look to for backup? could be your friends, could be your parent, could be your boss, could be anything that you can draw a circle around, something specific *enough* so you can say "yeah they'd say x in this situation". we'll come back to that when I ask, "who am I?", I go and check: 1. ah - *pulls up character sheet* - this is me, this is who I am, this is what I would do in situation x y z. when I run into something that doesn't fit my worldview, here's where I go: 2. hi parent! *pulls up the character sheet I have for them* - this is what I understand of my parent. this is who they are, this is what they would do in situation x y z. when they run into something that doesn't fit their worldview, here's where they go: 3. hi archetypal parenthood! *pulls up the character sheet I have for that thing* - this is what I understand of what my parent understands of what it means to be a good parent. what a good parent does do, doesn't do, all that. when something ungoodparentable comes up, here's where *that* definition comes from: 3. hi god! or rather, hi my-understanding-of-my-parent's-understanding-of-archetypal-good-parent's-understanding-of-god! *pulls up that character sheet* ... actually let's stop there for now when my selfhood feels shaky/unresolved, my parent can help. *unless* my connection to that authority source feels shaky. if that's the case, I feel like my parent looms over me. and I tend to project that backward too - like, it's not just them looming over me, it's authority-as-looming. parent looms over me, parent-archetype looms over them, god looms over *them*. authority feels looming. for a while there, it seemed like my parent's source of identity was *their* parent. but then it also seemed like my grandparent's source of identity was my parent? they just sort of... looped? and *that* left me feeling nowhere. how can I get an identity from a loop? realizing that my parent was actually just trying to be a good parent, and not be a good *kid* to *their* parent, was my first sample of swapping out the authoritative identity-source for someone in my understanding. (hi! I'm autistic!) it didn't change *them*, but it did change my understanding of them. and look: if the authoritative identity-source can be swapped out, then... there's no *looming* going on, in absolute terms. it feels much more like it's just a bunch of self-having characters pointing at each other, and *that* is something I can navigate on purpose, like a *peer* in the group instead of the smallest entity in the group. all "selves" are the same size, as far as the identity-authority map is concerned. so: who are you? who's telling you that? who's telling *them* who *they* are? is it important that that's who you are? how at-home do you feel, in that "self"? are you comfortable? are you capable? are you *changeable?* sorry sorry, I meant, if you wanted to change something, could you? if there was something you felt like you *couldn't* change, what would ... what would happen next? --- see: "resolver"