I talk to myself. As I walk to school, do my homework and listen to music there is a constant stream of dialogue in my head. Many people talk to themselves to fight loneliness, for amusement, and to make noise. I have long conversations with myself because I like to tease my brain into arguing with itself. This ability of mine to split my thoughts into alternative ideas, leads me to question the way our culture defines “self” and traditional interpretations of sanity. Who would win an argument between myself and me? The answer depends on how I define myself and how I know who I am.
I am a 5’3” Caucasian teenager with a frizzy halo of hair and fingernails sometimes bitten until there is nothing left. Is this physical description, complete with firing synapses and metabolic functions, a complete definition of myself? Or are we more than just our physical bodies? Personally, I prefer to believe that there is more to me than my physical representation.
In Buddhism, the mind, body, and soul are interconnected and cannot function without the cooperation of the component parts. I am my body, but I am also my musings, actions and emotions. When I think to describe myself, I think of what I say, do and feel as an accurate representation of me. For some, clothes define their personality, for others, they are their actions. For most, self is everything combined.
However, the world can only observe our actions. To other people, we are our actions: they are not privy to our inner commentaries. When I am at school, the physical me sits at my desk and listens to the teacher, answering questions and participating in class. My thoughts, however, race along in another dimension. Invisibly, I am doubled over laughing at “inside” jokes, observations and commentary. “I can’t wait for the pig’s heart dissection – I wonder if I would be able to see a piece of cloth one molecule thick – how long until lunch – ooh, interesting factoid”.
Actions are usually, but not always, the effects of our thoughts. Our culture tends to define us by our actions, but we aren’t just our actions, especially in extreme circumstances. Is the person who steals bread because they are starving a malevolent, evil, scheming person? Does the shy, silent boy truly have no opinions? Some people, politicians, hypocrites, (cats?), and those in extenuating circumstances think one thing and proceed to act on something else. However, the world interacts with us based on our actions, not on our thoughts. For me, this creates a discrepancy between who I think I am and who the world thinks I am. People think I’m quiet—and I am, sometimes, but inside I am loud and boisterous. There is no foolproof way to understand and “know” another person—unless you are Spock and can mind-meld…
When I have conversations with myself, two expressions of my personality converse with each other. One part, the segment that expresses itself in the world, is quiet, polite, and friendly. My personal commentator is sarcastic, bold, witty (at least, I like to think so), and talkative. These two opposing personalities allow me to have discussions with myself. When I need to practice for a French Oral exam, I can talk to myself—and I ask the perfect questions. Funny. My mother looked askance at that: I was sitting on the bed, asking questions, and answering queries with myself. In French.
In the past, if I showed someone this essay, I would perhaps be inducted into an insane asylum. Historically, quirky people were burned as witches, exiled, shunned, or were otherwise marginalized. However, the person who seemed crazy to the English nobles might be the revered medicine man of the Toltec in Mexico. Our interpretation of sanity changes through time and across cultures.
This leads me to speculate about our modern definition of sanity. Is there even an operational meaning of “sanity” that is recognizable across culture, time, and space? In the 1973 paper “On Being Sane in Insane Places” by D. L. Rosenhan, a study placed eight sane people (pseudopatients) in various American mental institutions. The pseudopatients were told to act normally. None of the hospital staff were alerted to the presence of the imposters. The goal of this experiment was to determine if environmental context influences our ability to make logical diagnoses about sanity or insanity.
The results of this experiment were striking, apparent, and ironic. The pseudopatients “sanity” went undetected by hospital staff. When the masqueraders took notes on other patients and their surroundings, the staff saw this only as a pathological manifestation of their illness. Only the “insane” inmates saw that the pseudopatients did not belong and were “sane”. This study demonstrated that our paradigms of sanity and insanity are often based on cultural prejudices and circumstantial evidence.
So who does win an argument between myself and me? I do.
