Don't Eat the Menu
On the difference between the symbol and the thing it stands for — why money is just a unit of measurement, why your identity is a patchwork of stories other people wrote, and why the buck has to stop with you, right now.
3 posts tagged with "identity"
On the difference between the symbol and the thing it stands for — why money is just a unit of measurement, why your identity is a patchwork of stories other people wrote, and why the buck has to stop with you, right now.
Suppose a dial were wired in beside your eyes, and turning it changed what a person actually is — body, then personality, then soul, then a single shared awareness, then nothing at all. On the many channels of identity, why you are not the car you happen to be driving around in, and why being nobody in particular turns out to be an enormous relief.
A personal reflection on how we wear ideological lenses — saffron and green — that blind us to one another's humanity. Written from Nashik during the 2020 lockdown, on faith, doubt, the Constitution, and what it actually means to call yourself Indian.