“Who am I?”
At some point, most people ask themselves this question. It has, arguably, many answers; here is one answer, offered through the lens of one’s psychological being:
You are the Elephant with its Rider in tow (that is, along for the ride) sustained (at least for now) in a human body.
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“So, uh, what is this ‘Elephant-thing’ with ‘a Rider’ on its back that somehow defines me as who I am?”
The Elephant with its Rider is Haidt’s metaphor of your mind.* The Elephant part of your mind is where all your self-knowledge, memories, beliefs, skills and know-how are held and, some might further argue, where your soul resides. That is who you are: a sentient being who has an identity (self-knowledge), a history (memories), a presence (beliefs), and a future capable of doing (skills and know-how). The Rider part of your mind is the conscious, aware faculty that can – and does – sense, feel, experience, and figure out.
If you want to know why you feel and act the way you do…then learn about, get to know, and take care of your Elephant. This site is mostly about that personal quest – “Know thyself” – and a good next step just might be here.
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But then, as social psychologist Elliot Aronson** would argue, the question of:
“Who am I?“
is more constructively reframed as:
“Who do I want to become? “
The answer to the first is where you are on the journey…to the second where you hope to go. And to find the answers, you can’t just “Google it.”
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*Elephant/Rider Model (and metaphor): The Happiness Hypothesis, Jonathan Haidt, 2006.
**Not by Chance Alone: My Life as a Social Psychologist, Elliot Aronson, 2012.
