Speaking of We

TERRITORIES OF IDENTITY

Have U ever noticed that U are different around different people? Not in a calculated, manipulative way, but in a perfectly natural way?

Perhaps U are more outgoing and confident around one friend, and more reserved but also playful with another; heady and intellectual with one coworker, intuitive and decisive with another. 

I’ve paid attention to these dynamics in myself, in the context of different friendships and relationships, for some time. With Jane, I am more empathic, more connected to my heart; with Ulysse, I am silly and playful and inclined to banter; with Sílvia, I feel deeply connected to my vow, in all its breadth and fullness.

The texture and substance of these relationships, of who I am and how I present, is far more varied and detailed than these brief summaries suggest¹Rosa Lewis’ article Imaginal Worlds is a beautiful love poem to the territory and terrain of these heartspaces.. Each connection brings out different aspects of the soul, makes manifest varied latent potentials.

THE THIRD PERSON

I have the sense that, by default, when most people are with someone else, they consider themselves as separate individuals. “I” am speaking with “you.” “I” am going to the movies with “them.” “I, Tasshin, am hanging out with you, Jane.”

This was certainly my own lived experience for many years—until recently. Increasingly, I find myself feeling alienated from this way of seeing, and the conventional way of speaking associated with it. 

When connecting with someone, I am neither myself nor them but a third, larger person²I am thinking of Hélène Cixous’s The Third Body, which I’ve not read but has been a suggestive title to me since a mentor first mentioned it some time ago..

I have sometimes started referring to myself as “Tasshin-Jane” when I am spending time with Jane. If I were spending time with U, I could call us “Tasshin-<ur name>”—and U could call us “<ur name>-Tasshin.”

SPEAKING OF WE

Often, we speak from ourselves—“I feel this” or “I think that.” But we can also speak from the collective, from a dyad or larger group.

Making a “we” statement is a bid towards establishing shared truth and reality. It is an act of tremendous significance and intimacy to find and express a shared truth that is accurate, feels resonant for all.

Conversely, it is an act of disconnection, somewhere between annoying and extreme violence, to express a shared untruth. No, we do not all support that political party, thank U very much.

So we take a risk when we speak not for ourselves but for a collective. It risks disconnection but we are rewarded by new truths and possibilities as we establish firmer connection to shared truth and experience.

Say what’s true for a group, for us, repeatedly—stay in speaking the collective truth—and that group will become increasingly coherent, coordinated, felt.

The experience of, for example “Tasshin speaking with Cheryl” or “Cheryl speaking with Tasshin” fades and the experience of what we might call “Tasshin-Cheryl speaking” becomes more prominent.

The character and capacities of the shared reality, the larger being becomes increasingly clear. Who we are, what we desire, how we wish to connect—to convene and collaborate, to play and explore—becomes apparent.

The draw we felt to connect, the magnetic pull bringing us together, the implicit erotic undercurrent becomes more solid, clarified in its nature, the possibility space both widens into multiple directions and collapses into a next step, the path forwards.

Thank U to my friends who inspired this post, especially Jane and Cheryl (after our excellent podcast conversation together), but also many more.

The art in this post was created by Sílvia Bastos, and is licensed under a CC BY 2.0 license. You can support her work on Patreon.