Mordax et al

There are times when we have the impulse to say that we must be making our plurality up. That the way we exist internally must be the way that everyone secretly exists internally, and they just don’t make a big deal out of it.

But the more we learn, the more we know that it isn’t true. Or if it is true, it’s not true in a way that makes a difference for our lived experience. 

Learning that some people have aphantasia, that some people entirely lack an internal monologue. Those have been enlightening experiences.

I don’t think it matters if you see it as a divergence of the spirit (as we do) or of the mind. There’s not even a qualitative difference. Soulbonds? Dissociative Identity Disorder? It doesn’t make a difference to our lived experience. Our real, internal experience that informs the way we live our lives in the day to day.

We’re pretty certain that most people don’t endlessly dialogue internally with multiple consistent ‘people’. States of being. Coherent and consistent idea sets.

We’re pretty certain it’s not widely relatable to have different sets of food preferences for different ‘internal modes’. We’re pretty certain that most people don’t have to contend with their favorite food suddenly tasting bad because one of those other ‘identity modes’ is active.

We’re pretty certain most people don’t experience anxiety and discomfort wearing clothes that they picked from their own curated wardrobe because a different person is active than the one who put the clothes on.

Other people just don’t have a bunch of different discrete, coherent internal ‘sets’ of preferences, beliefs, ideals, etc. If they do, they’re really good at hiding it. 

But we can say for sure, for us, that there’s a real, genuine lack of a singular, coherent and stable personal identity in this brain/body. There are multiple. Interconnected. Interacting. Co-existing. Whatever that means.