Heroes Not Zombies

Montaigne knew that some of the things he had done in the past no longer made sense to him, but he was content to presume that he must have been a different person at that time, and leave it at that. His past selves were as diverse as a group of people at a party.

I think it’s great that Montaigne didn’t regret things. I’m sure we all have things we’d rather have said or done differently in the past, but that judgement so often comes after the event. If instead of beating himself up with regret, he reflected on his past behaviour and learned from it, then he gave himself the opportunity to grow and develop. “Another bloody learning opportunity”, as one of my friends would put it.

I understand that, and it’s not a new insight. I’m also familiar with the idea that each of us is a “community of selves”, (search for that phrase in my blog for more details), each self coming forward in particular circumstances or contexts. But, for some reason, I’ve never applied that to the past.

It’s a good idea of Montaigne’s though, don’t you think? How often do we look back to previous life stages and think “I was a different person then”? Even looking at old photographs we can find ourselves thinking “was that really me? Was that what I was like back then?”

Seeing that phase, that stage, in life as a different “self” (as long as we don’t split apart all those selves and disintegrate) can be really healthy. It allows us to find the same compassion towards ourselves as we do towards others and that let’s us understand ourselves better.

Another way of thinking the “community of selves” idea is by seeing ourselves as multidimensional. Montaigne said “We are all patchwork, and so shapeless and diverse in composition that each bit, each moment, plays its own game”. This is a pretty good description of how we are all a constantly changing interplay of flows, each stream, or dimension, or part, or self, interacting with the others and coming to the fore in specific and particular times and places.

You have to be gentle with yourself (your selves) if you’re going to get to know yourself better.