AutoBioPhilosophy: An intimate story of what it means to be human

1 There has been an interim beforehand of uncertainty, lack of direction, or sheer purposelessness. It is virtually impossible to make an instant transition from one strong sense of purpose to another. Fallow periods play a vital role in preparing for fertility. Before our purpose can be known, first it must be unknown. Time spent feeling uncertain, therefore, is not invariably unproductive. It could represent a precondition of certainty, a prelude that allows the mind to sift its junk and make space for purpose’s arrival.

2 The purpose has to fit with our context. I wouldn’t have latched on to Derrida had I not been a student. I wouldn’t have latched on had Derrida’s work not been a hot topic. I wouldn’t have latched on had the study of English literature at Oxford not been in a state of torpor, needing rejuvenation. Realistically, my purpose could never have been to become a fisherman or a miner: such possibilities were too remote from the world that I inhabited.

3 Our purpose has to align with whom we want to be. It is an expression of our ideal selves. I adopted Derrida because I saw him as clever, innovative and cool. If I am candid, these attributes were exactly the three that I would have picked to describe my ideal self. They were how I wished to be seen. That’s not quite the same as identification, which is the process of identifying with somebody else, whereby my hero and I share an identity, or there is an existing affinity. It’s rather that a fantasy about oneself is embodied by another person. Jacques Derrida and I were not the same. Between his identity and mine, there lay a gap. What filled that gap was my aspiration to be like him. He might not have been clever, innovative and cool at all. The point is that I valued those three attributes, and then attributed the attributes to him. That made him an ideal version of myself. If he was my hero, he was a proxy for me as my own hero. I then aspired to become this ideal version of myself.