Spirituality/Medicine Interface Project

Saving Face

Authors: Conrad C. Daly, MTH

Abstract

Unlike those characteristics which describe the self, identity is not a static reality; rather, it is a construct perpetually in the process of being created and edited. Furthermore, although the editing may be done by the self, it is influenced as much by forces from without as by those from within.1 As social creatures,2 our identity does not exist independently of the world but in relation to and with it. As such, the reality of the self is a multifaceted aggregation of a series of presented faces and identities, each of which is formed in communion with others: the more extensive one"s life connections, the more multifaceted and richer the self can (potentially) become. Self-identity, however, only comes in integrating-if not necessarily understanding-these various selves.

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