Coming home to self

Hi Reader,

Here’s another sort-of-parable about coming home:

Imagine that you forgot who you were. Didn’t know your name, where you grew up, what year it is, or who the president is. Classic TV-style amnesia.

Now, take a look around your house. The place you called home just a moment ago is now unknown to this dis-identified version of you. It’s like you just got dropped into a house you’ve never been in before. Or, take it further still; it’s like you got dropped into a house having never been in any house before.

Depending on how vivid your imagination is, maybe you’re feeling quite alienated right now. But even if you’re having trouble imagining yourself with amnesia, I hope you can see how whatever “home” means to you, it seems to be related to who you are, to your memories, your associations, your identity.

In other words, home is familiar. So if you’re suddenly someone for whom nothing is familiar, nothing can be home.

Now, from this perspective, still amnesic, come home. Can it be done? To what familiar thing would you return to?

To me, this is an interesting little exercise because it helps me get a little outside my normal way of looking at things, and it seems obvious that my normal way of looking is never going to bring me home. Otherwise I wouldn’t be doing all this work trying to understand what I’m talking about.

It also points at the possibly-important insight that whatever coming home means is inseparable from who I perceive my self to be. That is, home for Michael Marvosh is his house, where he’s typing this message to you right now. But that’s not the home I’m talking about, so when I talk about coming home I must be talking about someone other than Michael Marvosh.

Who is this mysterious person that I seem to simultaneously be and not-be? And who is that person to you?

Well? What do you see?

I’ll pick up this thread next week.