Identity, the Root of Human Misery

It’s astonishing to what lengths people are willing to go in their fear of death and losing identity. Poor zombies — they have yet to realize that they didn’t even start to live.

Some identify with their gender. Some identify with the color of their skin. Some identify with their nation. Some identify with their achievements. Some identify with their social role while others identify with their interests. The list is endless.

As is obvious, identities are inherently possessive and force a relationship upon those around lest that identification dissolves and dies. Some relationships are binding while others are exclusive, put in place merely to separate a particular identity from the others.

So, blacks must have whites as Jews must have gentiles. Stars must have fans as businessmen must have customers. Parents must have children as children must have parents, and women must have men as men must have women (and both of them are essential for transgender folks). In essence, slaves must have owners as owners must have slaves — there will never be an enduring equilibrium of equity between complementary identities.

Therefore, identities naturally flock into tribes that blame each other for their misery and argue who is functionally or morally superior. Yet, the true root of the suffering is the clinging to the very identity that constitutes the tribe. The fatigue stems from incessant reasserting of one’s name.

But try to touch anyone’s labels and the targeted zombie screams in despair, “You are killing me! What will remain of me when I lose my precious names?”

Thus, there are people desperate to be remembered and leave behind some kind of legacy. Thus, we have endless strife, disagreements, coercion. And wars — from bloody, through cultural, to bloody cultural (which is the utmost idiocy).

Still, if you want to be free of that shit and finally live, kill your identities. All of them. When natural death strips you of your names for good, it will be too late for regret. Wasted life being dead won’t return. Yet, even without names you can still say, “I am.” After all, that’s the only identity that at least hints at something real.

Even if those, too, are just words.