For he who lives more lives than one, more deaths than one must die. - Oscar Wilde
Humans are complex creatures, with overlapping layers of identities: religion, locale, occupation, family, etc. Normally this doesn’t present an issue. Unfortunately, for some people the different identities conflict.
When Oscar Wilde wrote his quote above, he was retelling the story of a death row inmate walking to his execution. Wilde lived a life that contradicted in many aspects, and his wisdom above should be a warning to us. When our actions do not align with our values, we risk divorcing ourselves into multiple identities, which can only create chaos in our lives.
Being Honest with Others…and Yourself
Humans have an innate sense of justice. One of the things that we despise in others is hypocrisy. Why were Bill Clinton & Donald Trump able to get away with philandering and maintain popularity while scores of politicians were not? It is because they never pretended to be something they weren’t. Everyone knows they were womanizers. As long as they were honest about it, then most Americans were willing to forgive their trespasses. The problem is when someone takes a moral stand, and then is found to be a hypocrite. That is the unforgivable sin for most people.
Which is the Real You?
The military promotes a personality split more than most other communities. It is perfectly acceptable to be the most foul-mouthed sailor in the world and then go right back to your family and clean it up. So which one is the real you? They both a coexist as long as the values associated do not contradict. But as soon as the abusive language leaves work and comes home, now problems begin.
The good news is that humans are free to become just about anyone they want to be. We literally have the ability to rewire our brain based upon our actions. If you watch pornography, you are going to crave pornography. If you go on nature hikes, you are going to crave nature hikes (unless its August in Mississippi). By denying ourselves certain things and encouraging others, we can change the very chemistry of our brain.
I used to watch hours of TV a night. I spent 10 years largely not reading, just getting sucked into my phone and watching different series. When I started grad school, the only time to study was at night after putting the kids to bed. Because I was forced to read and turn off the TV, my desires completely shifted. In the last three years, I have watched one TV series with my wife, a handful of movies, and an occasional sport. But otherwise, the TV stays off in our house.
My wife and I made the same decision with the kids. When we bought our van, one of the first things we did was order a TV for the back seats. It was a requirement! How can kids not be entertained while we drive? When we started seeing addictive traits in the kids, we made the decision to turn it off. At first it was a fight every time. Then it became occasional. Now, our kids never ask to turn it on. Don’t get me wrong, if it was playing they would watch it, but they have also learned to deal with boredom other ways: reading, drawing, crochet, etc.
The problem is the initial fight. When people are unwilling to have the initial fight to change, they will be unable to unlock the infinite outcomes for their lives.
Infinite Outcomes
Every decision we make branches into two paths. Yes or no. Right or wrong. Others or self. We are literally an infinite number of regressions from where we started. This is why two siblings can begin at the same place and end up in two completely different lives.
One of the brilliant ideas of Fight Club was that the main character (Ed Norton) knew who he was supposed to be Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), but got lost in the drudge of life. Every decision he made took him further and further from his desired outcome, to the point that he had to create an alter ego in order to remember that he was even alive.
There is a weight to this, knowing that each decision affects the next. As we start our lives, we have those infinite number of outcomes, but each decision removes some of those outcomes. Maybe we choose to befriend one person over another and that leads us to the athlete group instead of the skater group. Or maybe we choose to attend one school over another, and that removes another large chunk of outcomes. This is overwhelming for a lot of people. Decision fatigue and the weight of commitment are very real and exhausting. But decisions have to be made, even when the outcomes are unsure.
The problem is, when we don’t have an end goal, there is no guide to making each decision.
Equally problematic is when we try to be what someone else wants us to be. When I went to Annapolis, I felt like I needed to become someone who belonged there. I needed to sound and look like the others. By the time I graduated, I was pretty far away from who I truly was, but at the same time, this new ego is who I had become. Getting back to what I WANTED to be, instead of what I thought someone else wanted me to be, took time. In fact, it took years to get back to my faith and my confidence in my identity. This is the tragedy of so many. People are looking towards the wrong identity and the wrong goal, with affirmation from the wrong people. This dissonance is what leads to people who are lost in the world around them.
Who do You Want to Be?
When my cousin reached out to me a few years ago about his son wanting to be a Marine Pilot, the first thing I did was send him a set of pilot wings and told him to put it on his desk. My hope was to provide him a goal that would help him through the distractions of his college years.
The point is…TV is addicting. Alcohol and partying are addicting. Social media is addicting. If you don’t have a goal, something that you can hold on to, then you will likely fall off the path and wake up 10 years later wondering where it all went.
And if your eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell. - Matthew 18:9
Similarly, you can be on two paths, in two lives, simultaneously. You can be a professional who has their life together at work, and still be the binge drinker on the weekends. Perhaps you can balance those, but in reality, few people can manage that. Eventually one of those two lives takes priority. The problem arises when the consequences of one start to overpower the requirements of the other. Going back to Wilde, we can choose to kill the partier, or we can choose to kill the worker, but eventually one of them will have to go.
I’ve had to kill some identities in my own life in order to fulfill the life that I want to live. I used to be an avid golfer, but when I got married and my wife had kids, golf became a much lower priority, to the point of effectively killing that identity. Don’t get me wrong, I love playing golf, but I love spending weekends with my wife and kids more.
The key is, every time you say yes to something, you say no to something else. Even this Substack comes at the cost of something else in my life; however, I have placed it as a priority to think though some of these ideas in order to have a more refined philosophy to educate my children.
So the question is, who do you want to be?
You are an infinite number of people sharing a single body. Each decision you make affects the other. Who will your future self be? Are you willing to kill off the other people that you don’t want to be so you can match your potential?
The good news is that you can make that decision today and start moving a new direction. The bad news is that you will have to make the exact same decision again tomorrow, and the next day, and every day for the rest of your life. But as long as you have a goal, you will live the life of that goal. Otherwise, you risk living multiple lives and losing control over which one take priority. So who do you want to be?