Identity and self-image - teachers and students in our days. Mahendra Gonsalkorale

Identity and self-image - teachers and students in our days

Mahendra "Speedy" Gonsalkorale

Philosophers and religions debate whether or not a self exists. Is there a soul which persists after death in the afterlife? Plato firmly believed in the self, formed through the acquisition of knowledge while Aristotle believed in an eternal soul which formed the basis of self. The Buddhist philosophy does not accept a permanent soul and refers to a stream of consciousness which manifests as body-mind entities through many lives. The question, "Does the death of a person result in the birth of another?" remains unanswered. It is quite ironic that a lot of self-deniers spend a lot of time telling their not-existent selves that there is no self and follow courses and seminars on how they should not worry about self as self does not exist. Who knows? I don’t.

Most humans, by nature, have a sense of self. The little infant looks at himself one day and sees that he has a separate body and that others around him also recognise him as a separate entity and then the realisation, “it is Me, it is I!” dawns. A sense of self and identity are interwoven. A sense of self often gives rise to a strong desire to project an image of the right kind to others around you. This is more than physical, although the physical aspect is of great importance (traditionally to women, although men are not excluded). The desire to be seen variously as attractive, intelligent, powerful, creative, influential, charismatic, talented, and to be loved, admired, feared, and respected are all aspects of self-image. The quickest way into someone’s heart is to say how wonderful he/she is, and the fastest way to be excluded is to say how awful they are! Of one admired by somebody but hated by most, it is often heard said by this somebody who loves the unloved one, “He/she is not such a bad person after all as he/she really likes me” (He likes me, that is what matters!). We spend a lot of time and energy pushing our identity as we wish it to be seen, and it can vary according to the time and situation, i.e., context. The tyrannical teacher in the Ward, who appears to have forgotten how to smile, is all sweet and honey at the party he gives at the end of the “sig” at his home in the all-important presence of his beautiful wife as she fusses over us. Many of us, whether we like it or not, are like that- we are multiple personalities within an ever-changing body in an ever-changing world.

I now turn to identity and image as applied to some of our teachers in our Faculty days.

One group (typical examples are Path Cooray, Prof Rajasuriya, and Prof Ranasinghe wanted to cast an authoritarian image demanding respect and obedience.

A second group, as personified by Lester Jayawardena, Oliver Pieris, Dr  Lionel, Dr Wijenaike, preferred the image of the knowledgeable and brilliant teacher. They generally also cast an image of friendliness without losing hierarchical respect.

A third group appeared unconcerned with physical aspects such as formal dress (a feature of Group 1) and wore comfortable clothes rather than formal, such as an open shirt without a tie. Persons like Bull Seneviratne, Carlo Fonseka belonged to this group. They were also generally kind and cheerful

Then there was the fourth Group who seemed to hate the job they only did for reasons other than the love of teaching and were content to spit out without being concerned whether the spit landed where it was intended. I leave you to guess who I am thinking of!

Looking at our own Batch, we had the Romeos who were well dressed and well groomed, the gregarious who craved to be liked, wanted and admired, the scholastic who revelled in being recognised as “clever buggers”, the aggressive who walked with a stagger and purveyed his territory and picked fights with competitors, the meek who were always hiding and disappearing, the insecure ones looking for compliments, admirers and anybody willing to be his friend, the studious who had no genuine interest in his colleagues, or for that matter, in any person, probably ending up in a laboratory or morgue.

Among the girls, there were the beautiful who knew they were beautiful and attractive but took great pains to pretend they were not thinking that way and others who didn’t want to pretend and relished the hungry looks of easy prey. Some liked the boys but thought it best not to reveal this, although they sometimes wore very revealing dresses! There were the not-so-attractive who resented the attention given to the attractive and cultivated an air of indifference. Some girls were sadly not gorgeous and pretended that they didn’t care as they came here to be doctors one day, not somebody’s wife, and those who had an overpowering desire to pollute the atmosphere around them with overpowering scents and perfumes which heralded their appearance and lasted long after their disappearance.

But we all liked to be liked, and we all didn't want to be ostracised. The image we wanted to display was affected by these human wants.

And all this was a microcosm of the actual world around us! Long live those memories.

I hope to see lots of comments on my light-hearted essay.