8552Soc 102-Sec 1Winter 14: SI 2

It’s quite evident that one’s environment constantly affects one’s actions and words. For instance, on occasion in conversation I’ll realize that the manner in which I’m speaking might be drastically different from a conversation I had been having only minutes before. When speaking with an authority figure or a stranger, it’s generally common courtesy to be polite and attempt to present an image of yourself as a normal, well-adjusted individual. But of course as soon as you alter that environment and begin conversing with a familiar person, such as a close friend or a sibling, that image falls away entirely to be replaced by a more casual one, as you attempt to present yourself as a fun, laidback person one would like to hang out with. But then you find yourself talking to a pretty girl and suddenly you’re not just fun and laidback, but interesting and charming, and hopefully the “best” representation of yourself. But which of these is an accurate representation – which one is actually you?

In this way we are constantly changing the identity of the self. We imagine what others see –boring or interesting, charming or awkward – and imagine how they might be judging us and how this might affect our interactions. Then, depending on how you want that person to perceive you, you have an emotional reaction to that judgment and alter your image, perhaps attempting to be funnier or calmer or louder or taller.

Back at home the image of myself I presented, the “looking glass self” as Charles Horton Cooley defined it, was fairly consistent. Obviously I wouldn’t act quite the same around my teachers as I might around my friends, but everyone saw more or less the same person. But a few months ago I left all of those people behind to attend a school on the other side of the country, and to a certain extent that person that all those people saw in me was left behind too. I’m different here – I dress different (better, I hope), I talk different (“y’all” has slowly permeated my vocabulary), and I feel different. Away from my parents, I am entirely in charge of myself and the image I present. Sometimes I’ll eat nothing but sugar cookies for dinner, and sometimes I’ll go out to parties and drink an unhealthy amount of alcohol, an activity completely foreign to that person I left behind on the other side of the country whose parents took him to church every Sunday and taught him exactly what image he should be presenting.

But here in Lexington I’ve re-examined the looking glass and determined what kind of person I want to appear to be. The current image of myself is drastically different from my image only 6 months ago, and 6 months from now it might be altered even further. Of course this lends itself to a question of the true identity – can there exist an accurate image of the self, free from the influence of the looking glass? Perhaps there isn’t a single accurate image, but a thousand, as just as a person changes and grows both physically and mentally, his image, the true one which only he can understand, must also change.