At 6:16 AM, Just Me said…
there was an article in national geographic eons ago that always stuck with me. it talked about memory and personality. as much as we think our personality is unique and the only one we’re capable of “owning” apparently amnesia victims who never regain their past memories will actually develop completely different personalities, different likes, dislikes, etc. so it raises the question: could we be different than who we are? how much of our personality is inherent in our brain and how much is affected by environment.

A personality is a random occurrence, built by Time and Ego on the basis of genetic inheritance and the environment. If you wipe out the memory of that personality, Time and Ego will work together to create a new personality. In fact, this little construct we call personality depends on so many random factors that it is hilarious how much we tend to hold on to it. We hold on to that personality more than we hold on to anything else… We say: this is me – take IT or leave IT! …when we should wisely leave IT ourselves…

Realizing that a personality is a random construct should enable us to let it go, but instead we often cling to it because we feel it is all we got…

The author of the book Translucent Revolution uses the words transparent vs translucent, and I think they would be useful here. While a human could certainly become transparent, or disappear, i.e. without an ego or personality – holy men in India are known to have achieved this – it might not be at all useful in our society… so, becoming translucent is the choice that makes sense. It means there is an ego, there is a personality but the human is aware that it is a random collection of stuff (likes, dislikes, preferences, opinions etc.) that can be adjusted when necessary.

Dealing with understanding the randomness of one’s personality is particular interesting for designers, artists and musicians – because we are valued exactly for our TASTE, our little collection of preferences… That private collection is what makes us sound a certain way if we are musicians, or what makes our designs or artwork look a certain way. And imagine how strange this is for a critic! While an artist can lose himself in his work sometimes and afterwards have no idea how or why I did that what does a critic do?