adopting mentors

Well, with the rise of identity defined almost solely through race, ethnicity, or gender, I think we’ve forgotten the identity that speaks when one is speaking to oneself. That is to say, one is more conscious of those things—class, race, age, sex—when one is in the presence of others. It’s the difference principle that makes you consciously say, I am black and you are white; I am old and you are young; I am a woman and you are a man. But when you’re by yourself you don’t need so powerfully to assert any one of those identities; when you speak to yourself, you rarely say, I, as a woman, am saying this to myself, or, I, as a sixty year old, am saying this to myself. You tend merely to say, I am saying this to myself, because in the absence of others you can be yourself without external reference.