A Different Voice, A Different Autobiography: Letting My Authentic Voice Speak

At times it manifests in an unnecessarily loud, aggressive tone of voice or a disproportionate amount of talking rather than listening. Eye rolling, smirking, sighing, and interrupting are also parts of my sometimes-negative communication style. For the past few months I have been given the unique opportunity to explore my many selves, and my communication issue particularly, on a micro and macro level within the framework of various readings, films and discussions on self and society. I have had the chance to view an aspect of my life within the broader social context and to form linkages between my actions and the society and world to which I belong. C. Wright Mills points out the significance of this when he reminds his readers that "by the fact of his living [the individual] contributes, however minutely, to the shaping of society" (349). My study did not begin as a desire to deepen my understanding of myself or my selves, or even an aspiration to explore ways in which individuals influence society and visa versa. I simply wanted to get some self control in social situations and find a way to be my vocal self without disrespecting others in the process. I wanted to look at my empirical self, the self that can be studied, as a way of understanding something that is mostly unconscious (Zerubavel, 16). When I decided on the topic for my self-exploration I tried to become more conscious of my communication style in various social settings. It was not long before my goal went out the window and I found myself right back in my usual ways of acting and reacting in social settings, displaying a trait in human thinking G. I. Gurdjieff calls forgetfulness. Observing this abandonment of the very objective of what I had set out to do, as I was going about doing it, solidified the importance of personal exploration into the reasons behind my ineffective communication style and why I had difficulty breaking away from it. I hoped to understand my motives in a clear, concise way, but have come to realize that this is not a possibility, for human beings are indescribably complex creatures. In writing about motives, author Diane Bjorklund points out that "the concept of motivation includes both conscious and unconscious motives and therefore is not limited to voluntary activity as is the concept of will" (91). In other words, the so-called motives behind my communication can not be easily figured out, understood, written about, or changed at the conscious level. They are deeply rooted, profoundly multifarious, and forever changing. George Herbert Mead writes about how having many selves is normal. "A multiple personality is in a certain sense normal," he writes. "... There is usually an organization of the whole self with reference to the community to which we belong, and the situation in which we find ourselves" (24). Actions vary according to our inner forces and outer circumstances and are significantly influenced by both. In her chapter on G.I. Gurdjieff's teaching entitled "The Psychology of Ordinary Human Beings," Kathleen Speeth explains why in Gurdjieff's view it is important for us, and me, to explore and examine ourselves. It is important to consider "our condition as it is now, and our condition as it would be if we were to realize our possibilities, our destiny, to the fullest" (Speeth, 31). Studying the self in this framework gives us an opportunity to observe and examine our selves of the moment while working toward freeing our more essential selves. Self judgment and hatred are thereby removed from the equation in Gurdjieff's method of self-observation. In Gurdjieff's view (Speeth, 48), personality is not static; it grows and transforms throughout the life course. Individuals go through stages in which they act in specific ways, and even within the same life stage different parts of personality emerge in various situations. In this exploration I have found myself questioning my true personality, as if there were such a thing. …