Hoday I heard a quote from Sri Aurobindo. He said that each of us has several selves. That was clear to me. It has been my experience for decades that the different aspects of a personality are many and that the idea of a subjective identity is a construction. I always saw the principles of construction as ideological, serving the logic of passports, individual responsibility and jurisdiction, but also of guilt and atonement, the idea of a soul in the Christian context, etc.
My reaction has always been to resist this constructive principle of individuality. Aurobindo now says that it is precisely when people feel that they have many aspects, many 'I's within them, that the task of sorting them out is difficult. Some people live in their own orbits and have found a way to somehow unite the contradictions. Others have so many 'I's that it is difficult to sort them out. How is this sorting supposed to work?
What is new for me is the idea that the many 'I's can be organized around something that is bigger and different. A greater consciousness. For many, this is perhaps a divine consciousness. For Deleuze, perhaps immanence. No longer being oneself as I have 5 years of philosophy studies to overcome here. And 20 years of art theory, which focuses on the individual.
