One, many or... none?

In a previous article and in a more recent blog of mine, I touched a topic that has always intrigued me, and still does. It concerns the reality of who we are. I find such subject to be extremely important because only if we can reach a practical conclusion, can we establish better relationships with our fellow human beings.
In a mind-provoking novel by Italian Nobel Laureate Luigi Pirandello, the author describes the excruciating mental work (that, sadly, transforms itself into folly) of a supposedly normal individual like you and me. Everything starts from a simple observation made by his wife, who just tells him, “You know, your nose is slightly bent to one side.” Can any remark be more innocent than this? Not for him. The mere realization that his physical aspect had a feature that another could see but of which he had been totally unaware, unleashes a world of questions and doubts within himself. He then asks some friends to describe how they see him, and they all come up with additional details that were utterly unexpected and unaccounted for by our poor unsuspecting protagonist.
From here, from such a disturbing revelation, his mental wandering starts and never stops, reaching the most extreme conclusions. He ends up assuming that a true “himself” does not exist. He had believed to be “one” . He had believed to be the individual he was seeing in the mirror all the time. He had also believed to be the same person that others saw, too. But he had now come to realize that — for each human being he interacted with — he was different, he was perceived in totally dissimilar ways. Therefore he comes up with the final conclusion that he is “no-one.” According to him, in fact a real “self” cannot exist if it is not possible to give a precise, unique and unchangeable description of it. At the end he refuses, beside everything else, even his own name. We won’t reach such an extreme conclusion and I suspect that Pirandello himself simply enjoyed the exercise of his extremely philosophical mental faculties. Nevertheless, “you” (and we all) should try to discover how others perceive you, especially the people who are closer to your heart. When you think you are being assertive, could it not be that your spouse/co-worker/friend sees you as domineering? When you keep asking another — just because you care — questions that he/she seems unwilling to answer, doesn’t cross your mind that they might judge you as pushy, intrusive, even inconsiderate?
Another example. An individual (man or woman) might believe they are not thin or fit enough and keep struggling endlessly with diets and extreme exercise, while friends envy their pleasant, shapely looks. On the other hand, someone who is convinced to be extremely good looking (or smart, or witty or...), is only perceived as conceited. In the above mentioned novel, the protagonist is made aware of a physical trait, a defect — according to him, that he had never noticed before. Often the opposite happens. Let us say that you are self-conscious about what you consider a flaw in you appearance (or in your character). But when, overcoming your shyness and perhaps even shame about it, you bring yourself to mention it to a friend, he or she will possibly say, “What? I had never noticed it!”
In conclusion, who are “you”? Are you the one you see in the mirror — the one you believe to be, the one you have always believed to be? Or are you the multifaceted individual whose face (body, character, behavior etc.) looks different to whomever you are dealing with? Could you even be an essence that is not detectable in its entirety by the lowly human perception? Who knows? And, finally, is it really important to “know”? Would something change in your life if you became aware of such possibilities? It might, and it might not. In any case, pondering about such topic is certainly good mental “gymnastics” for your brain, or anybody else’s. I promise!

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