An Issue of Persons

Cross references

Writing a story in the third person raises some curious experiences that are worthy of greater attention. When I wrote ' Legends of the Hearth ' … a four-book exploration into the variations of life's experiences in the world … I had based the lead character … loosely on my views about the world condition. I had named him Charles Mohan … of a parentage that is mixed between Tamil and Irish. But I found my expressions of him … flowing from many sources … to which I had functioned as moderator … to stay true to the lead character.

 

Shakespeare wrote many stories … and its curious to think that one man could have brought himself to identify with so many characters in his books. I on the other hand couldn't bring myself to write another novel … certainly not without Charles Mohan. I figure that would refer to the way we identify with the third person … as we relate to the character in our books. I identified my values and ideas of norm with Charles … and despite putting the character in a fictional life as a professor in an American university … who advances to research officer with UNESCO … and in retirement ... takes up a job offer of chauffeur … in a small American town … I couldn't break away from association with his identity.

 

It raises the wonder of how we view ourselves over the course of our age … starting from the teens … when we identify with the third person account … and in relation to a spouse … as the second person. And in older age … we strive to view ourselves in the first person. Its a powerful experience of life … in the social circle of events … family … and thereafter as the individual. It holds many secrets about the psyche … and an exploration of its functioning proves very informative.

 

A child's third person is obviously his mother … who deals with her son … on the possibilities of being when he is growing up. In that … the child is probably engaging in the many possibilities … of personality … that grows into something that he identifies as his ideal to be achieved. Its the realm of the imagination … that draws from our desires … and dreams … to produce the object of our ambitions … in the life. In combining that with the second person experience … we receive the affirmations of the world … regarding our ambitions … and refines the dream into a specific aim.

 

However in the final analysis … when a man rises to do the right thing … and to identify himself …  in his one and true personality … he confronts his own creation … over the course of his lifetime. Its the first person … the sense of 'I' … that presents itself as one more endeavor … he needs to engage … beyond the child's third person and the pre-adult's second. He is not unfamiliar with the issues … but he does need to bring to his experience … a delicate nature in respect of all … the variations in his one personality … and to do so with some understanding of the humanities.

 

In the experience of a lifetime … he is then the store … of a great many experiences and facts … about the life lived. It comprises from the start … memories of his childhood … the friendship of the teenage years … his pursuit of the ambition in his pre-adult … human society … his wife and kids … the world … and the intent of purpose … that has been served by his individual nature. Its the beginning … and it starts with learning to express … the many fathoms of passions and mind … of the experience.

 

My second person identity … as Charles Mohan … epitomized the reference everyone seemed to be making of me. It was the quintessential man of ideas … pursuing an achievement of his ambition … with regard to the world's needs … and for the final benefit of everyone … including himself. And the prevalent view is that … he'll do that without mucking it up … with his personal bias. He was therefore the hope of humanity.

Charles as a character in a story … derived from a third person view … couldn't have ' made it ' without the help of the living individual … the author … as the first person. Today Charles resembles the personality … of my passions … while I continue with the experience of mind … in the first person. I can only assume that we have the support of the female … in the third person … whether that is as mother … wife … or the all seeing eye.

 

Our second person … is necessarily a world personality … defined as the social ' you.' He stores the multiplicity of personalities … from around the world … and shares with them … the solution we have found to the identity of the human personality. It is undertaken with some belief … that in other lives around the world … we will be able to bring a decorum … regarding self realization … and guide others … in their volition and specialization … of their desires.

 

A note on a man's individual responsibilities … as regards family … will not be out of place here. The way the third and first person … encounter each other … in a growing family relation … is the stage for many of the situations … a man faces in his life. He would certainly like to believe that he did the best he could. The third person in our lives … is not without their … opportunities for growth … and some restraint by the first person as regards passion is called for.  The world is almost entirely made up of third and second persons.

 

The world's cultures … take up the issue of the cultivation … of the first person … in many different ways. Each is no doubt suited to the … place and physical environment … of its birth.  A thorough understanding … of our local conditions and psyche … is highly significant … and quite often we lose it first … before finding it again. In doing so … it gives rise to the opportunity … to construct the first person. It has always started from scratch.