Summary of Chapter 3: "Finding Yourself"

We have now entered a new age of anxiety about who we are. The horizontal self places the incredible burden of finding and forging an identity upon the individual. We find ourselves in situations of constant self-questioning and self-examination. Our cultural climate dictates that all truths must be questioned, so with no truth to hold on to and any Utopian dreams of changing our culture in tatters, all that is left are interior feelings, the distraction of romantic love, and the lure of pleasurable experiences. The rules of the game keep changing. And so, to discover a sense of identity, individuals must constantly reinvent themselves.

I spoke to a group of college students recently, and they said that the biggest pressure they have in their lives is to "keep up" - keep up with the right look, the right music, and the right technologies. Many in the group shared with me that they were overwhelmed by the pressure of keeping up. They desperately wanted to just give up, but the fear of social isolation was too much, so they gave in to constant reinvention.

When we have multiple self-images we find ourselves with conflicting values and views. Because we have retreated to a culture based on publicity and the acting out of multiple identities, our moral choices do not matter. What does matter is being seen as  having the right opinions. Instead of letting our actions show our convictions, we speak empty platitudes through our blogs, bumper stickers, and T-shirt slogans. In the age of the horizontal self, backing up our opinions with the right behaviour is seen as neither essential nor necessary. It is not as important that we are good as it is that we appear good.

However, in reality, what you believe is not what you say you believe, what you believe is what you do. Think about this phrase for a moment.

We are paralysed by not knowing who we really are. Instead of having well-defined identities, we have a churning sea of conflicting feelings and desires inside us. When we don't know who we are, we find it hard to know what we should be doing. We may have the right qualifications, we may have the skills and talent, but often we fear we will make the wrong decisions about our futures.

When we don't know who we are, we become slaves to our feelings. The momentary emotions that we feel begin to dominate our lives, and we become what we are feeling in that moment. When we don't know who we are, we become entrapped by circumstance. We give up trying to find out who we are, and instead we act. We treat life as if it were a movie - our disposable identities are the roles that we play. We look to the media to provide those identities.

Source: Mark Sayers (2010), The Vertical Self, p. 21-35