I think our biggest gripes with the origin label discourse and the general community bend towards "you must categorize yourself under one of two boxes, and the other box is evil" are:
The assumption that experiences have an objective, fundamental truth that allows perfect sorting
The assumption that experiences and understandings of those experiences also never change- that if you can sort yourself into a box, then you should live there forever.
The general "us versus them" of the whole thing.
Point one: experiences of self, identity, consciousness, etc. are all very fuzzy, subjective concepts at the moment. We've yet to pin down what even makes a person conscious, let alone what a person's "I" is. I'm not confident that an objective truth of the self exists.
Maybe some meatspace things do have a usefully objective truth, though more often than not it's filtered through human definitions like anything else- if this desk is a meter long, then how big is a meter, and is a meter truly an objective measurement? Who made it?
What's a person? What's a self? Are those things the same, or different? Where do I end, and where do you begin? Ask ten people and you'll get ten different answers. That's the beauty of it. We don't fully know.
Point two: People change all the time. We are always having new and different experiences in life, and those can shape how you see yourself over time. We used to exclusively see ourselves as a medicalized, psychology-based system. We see ourselves a lot more holistically now, but our life experiences are still just as much a factor as any woo-woo spirituality we experience. That's a change that breaks boxes.
We are not the only system who's changed how they understand themselves over time. Spirituality, medical psychology, and other frameworks are neither mutually exclusive nor fixed in place. Like the framework of plurality, they're a way to understand the world and your experiences in it. They're an attempt to make sense of it all. If it's not working, put it down and try something else.
Point three: it's slowly improving, but the average Joe still has no idea plural people exist outside of horror movie serial killers and shock stories. They don't think they'll ever meet a multiple, and if they do, they're still using Multiple Personality Disorder as a label for it regardless of the system's actual experiences.
We have bigger problems than each other. Biting each other's throats won't help us any more than infighting and scapegoating has helped in any other community. The fact that we're still fighting over this in one form or another 20 years later is depressing.
2087
blakekathryn
turnnoffyourmind
janainaart
jbbartram-illu
dededos
origamiaround
