Out, out brief candles, part 2

aThe many I’s and the roles we play are the dialogues that make our inner lives rich, even if as Walter Mittys.

Some of us do that more than others. Some of us indulge in that, to put the emphasis on consciousness of this that the normal public “I,” the quasi-equivalent of the Freudian superego, has.

What’s the harm in it?

Well, someone might say that overindulgence can lead toward the precipice of borderline personality disorder, or something similar. But, again, if there is no central I, who, if anybody, is being harmed?

To the degree that we each have a quasi-core I, of which there exist subpersonalities, rather than fully independent I’s in the plural, or nearly so, eventually that near-core I can be harmed. In short, we might move from a uniform, yet latitudinarian I, to borrow from Episcopalianism, to multiple I’s to the detriment of that unitary I and its various manifestations.

But, the sub-I’s might be better off. Who’s to say?