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My People Exaggerated theory

Rage

22:14 / 17.12.01

I am People Exaggerated. A combination of every person that I have ever hung out with, exaggerated. Every time I hang out with a new person, I change. I am extreme social satire and parody on display. People Exaggerated.

Is this possible? That I'm just an exaggeration and mockery of every person that I've ever interacted with?

My friend Phil says that every time you interact with someone, you swap energy with them, and that a part of you becomes a part of them and vise versa. I, myself, am really just a parody and exaggeration of the entity that is me. I've created myself to be an exaggeration of me, in other words.

So if the self that I have created for myself is an exaggeration of me, and "me" is a combination of every person that I have ever interacted with, is it logical to say that I am People Exaggerated?

cusm

23:05 / 17.12.01

Do you actually have a personality of your own, or are you just the pieces of other people you have learned?

Rage

23:30 / 17.12.01

You're missing what I'm saying. I believe that you create your own personality, and that there is no "real you". I've choosen to create my personality to be that of people exaggerated. If you think that interacting with a person results in their character becoming a part of you, it does. It's whatever you think. You make it that way. You're changing. Constantly making choices that effect and mutate your personality and self.

I choose to use myself as a disply for social satire and exaggeration.

Or maybe I've just gone off the deep end. Does anyone understand what I'm saying?

Solaris

06:51 / 18.12.01

Sho' nuff. Our more militant friends in the field of evolutionary psychology might go further and say that all our 'personality' is a bubbling mass of memes (a memeplex) held in our organic shells like radio waves passing through a transistor.

But fuck that! Stop imitating your friends, for Christ's sake. The odd catchphrase or interesting stance, for sure, but to describe yourself as other people exaggerated seems to me the sign of a chap with insufficient ego. Read a book and start modelling yourself on the central character; fiction's so much better than reality. Not Mein Kampf, though.

pantone 292

06:53 / 18.12.01

this sounds like a slightly nicer way of saying that the ego is the graveyard of all the identifications you have ever made, paceFreud...

sumo

12:23 / 18.12.01

I don't think so, Rage. When you say "...the self that I have created...", who is the 'I' you're referring to? I would suggest that there's Rage, and then there's all these other elements, accrued over numerous encounters with various people.

You're definitely influenced, altered, by the people you come into contact with, but I doubt very much that you're merely some kind of personality-morph reflection of other individuals.

(Uh, although I often find myself thinking something very similar to what you've described, and will henceforth be using 'People Exaggerated' to describe that suspicion. See how you've changed me already!?)

cusm

16:55 / 18.12.01

I follow you, Rage. I'm just stirring you for detail

I've often looked at how much of what I consider to be me to be originally me, and what is borrowed from other sources. Then I realize, its all borrowed from somewhere. Its the bits I put together in new ways and combinations that make me distinctively me. And of course, my choice of what memes I wish to be a part of the chaotic system of my personality. Personality bootstraps itself on to borrowed elements it learns to figure out how to be a personalty. Ego eventually crawls out of that mess when its happy with what its put together.

I think of it this way: "You" are the part of you that decided you should portray yourself as "people exaggerated". You are not what you know, you are what you are thinking. Being "people exaggerated" isn't what you are, its what you're doing.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

20:04 / 21.12.01

Rage: I know what you mean, but the way I see it is this:- I pick up personality components as I go on, but other old components get discarded or buried; they become redundant in the light of new experience, or simply get shouted down by the new parts.

I feel that "people exaggerated" is a thick top layer of my personality, like the skin of my self. The rest of me is built up of innate personality traits and stuff I've made up myself.

I hope.

No star here laces

15:48 / 23.12.01

See, I think the idea that there is a 'true' personality, as divorced from one's experiences to be a very dangerous (albeit commonplace) conception. Similarly the idea that creation involves creating something entirely novel.

Of course you are influenced by those around you, everyone is. Some people are more aware of it than others, some people are more willing to admit it than others.

Similarly, everytime you make something, or think a thought, of course you are being influenced by what other people have made or thought - how could you not be? If this weren't the case, we all still be scrawling stick figure on rocks, for christs sakes.

There's nothing wrong with being influenced by other people, and it doesn't make you less of an individual. Actually it makes you someone who is engaged fully with the outside world and who has a mind flexible enough to keep changing continually.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

07:00 / 24.12.01

Rage, I hope that Santa brings you a copy of 'The Meme Machine' (Susan Blackmore) for Christmas 'cos I think you may find it looking at the same idea.

Unfortunately I'm slaving away like an elven buttmonkey so can't say much more now.

Hush

03:43 / 26.12.01

Hi Rage

Sounds absolutely sensible to me. I usually put it like this: Your identity is the story you tell yourself about yourself to help you believe your real.

All stories derive from influences, and there are no better influences than the people you like.

The exagerated bit sounds like the sense of shock you experience as you attempt to integrate alien narratives into the ongoing one. It's like the weirdness of a new character in a soap opera, seeming gawky and ill fitted for a while.

It also reminds me of people learning a new language, they tend to overemphasise sounds and s l o w down the speech; ie exageration.

Just give up the anxiety about this insight and you'll be able to make a better story.

[ 26-12-2001: Message edited by: Jawbone ]

ceridwen

04:31 / 26.12.01

some psychologists say that the self is dependant upon interaction with others, that we would'nt know how to percieve ourselves with out input from others; seeing ourselves from another perspective. or something like that, i'm drunk.

and definately there are lots of us who reflect the people we know. i like to think of it as a sort of boiling down to the simplest level. that we can learn the natures of those we know, then extract the fundamentals of the personality to express and interact with the world. someone tell me if i'm making any sense.

the choosing comes from your interpretaion/opinion of what you learn. you know when some one is right on or full of shit, so you accept or reject those basic elements. damn i wish i were coherent.

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